Effects of MetroLink

Thousands of trees at risk

Letters to the Editor. Illustration: Paul Scott
The Irish Times - Letters to the Editor.

Sir, – People living in and visiting Dublin are in for an even greater shock (“Community shocked as 75 trees worth over €30,000 cut down in Dodder park”, April 23rd) if the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, and Transport has his way.

The mainly underground MetroLink will remove 60 per cent of 5,500 trees along its route. Another 5,000 trees will be lost in the road-widening needed for Bus Connects.

These projects will remove more than 8,000 trees from streets, roads, parks and front gardens. Past performance suggests that we cannot trust our public authorities to replant on the scale needed.

Given trees’ proven capacity to capture and store carbon, improve air quality, mitigate increased rainfall and urban heat, is anyone joining the dots as the impacts of climate change become more obvious? – Yours, etc,

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DONAL O’BROLCÁIN,

Dublin.