Taoiseach defends Cork City Council’s purchase of ‘robot trees’

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin has defended Cork City Council’s €350,000 purchase of ‘robot trees’, which have been placed indefinitely in storage following their removal.

Mr Martin said he would not be overly critical of the scheme, as “initiatives are taken, people try things out, some work out, some don’t work out”.

The five ‘CityTrees’, three of which were installed on Patrick Street and two on the Grand Parade in August 2021, contained moss walls designed to filter pollutants from the air.

Paid for as part of a €4m funding allocation from the National Transport Authority (NTA) to Cork City Council, the ‘robot trees’, as they became known, initially cost €355,106, while maintenance between August 2022 and September 2023 cost €17,880.

A council official told The Echo the devices had not worked as well as expected because the city centre air was not highly polluted.

Storage

The units have been placed in storage, and their bases retained for seating, while students at the UCC/MTU t Cork Centre for Architectural Education (CCAE) consider an alternative use for the devices.

The Taoiseach said a lot of good things had been done in Cork city centre, including its pedestrianisation.

“The city council has tried a lot here, and if you recall during covid-19 it was one of the more innovative councils — it pedestrianised 18 streets in fairly quick time, so I try and be balanced,” he said.

“It’s very easy to pick on one issue and just highlight that and get into the waste issue.”

Asked whether Cork City Council might be better served by investing in real trees, he said it was doing that too, planting between 4,500 to 5,000 trees per year.

Expensive

Meanwhile, a leading sustainability activist has said the only bright side to the ‘robot trees’ saga was the city had at least gained public seating, even if it was the most expensive in the country.

Jude Sherry, urban renewal expert with Anois, said she had seen no evidence that the council had learned anything from “the failure of the robot trees”.

“The only success I can see was the creation of much-needed public seating, so it’s great to see them retained,” Ms Sherry said.

“But they must be the most expensive benches in the country — possibly even Europe — when you add in the maintenance, electricity, and water consumption over the years.”