Did Waterford council spend €40,000 to replace trees planted at the wrong time of year?
Councillor Donal Barry asked if the the council had to replace trees planted at the wrong time. Stock Image
Funding of €40,000 was not spent to replace trees that failed but just to make sure the contractors came back to plant them.
That is according to Senior Engineer Michael Murphy at a recent sitting of the Metropolitan District Council.
Cllr Donal Barry asked Mr Murphy to clarify if the money was being spent to replace trees in Bilberry that had failed because they were planted at the wrong time of year.
Mr Murphy said that while a number of the trees did fail, the money was retained to ensure they were replanted.
“€40,000, I know it sounds like an awful lot of trees, but what it was, was the retention for Bilberry was 5 per cent of the contract costs, and there was €260,000, I believe.
"Of that €260,000, we weren’t happy that the trees... a number of the trees failed.
"They have come back. They were planted in December. So now the €40,000 becomes payable, but it is part of the retention figure.
"It wasn’t €40,000 to plant a few trees. It was retained to make sure they came back to plant the trees,” said Mr Murphy.
