Councillor Phyll Bugler says sightings of the invasive species have been found along the shores of the Cullina estate and Ballina Riverside Park, and she herself has spotted it on the R445 from Nenagh to Limerick.
The Fine Gael councillor made the council aware of the issue at this month’s meeting of the county council.
To permanently clear an area of Japanese knotweed, it needs to be injected with a chemical known as glyphosate.
Cllr. Bugler says the powerful species has an extremely fast spreading rate.
“It really is very important because this Japanese knotweed can spread very fast, and it can actually come up through cement it’s so strong. So, it’s a very difficult one for us to manage. The county council, in conjunction with our environment department, are monitoring it, and I tell them then of any areas that have Japanese knotweed. It’s one that we have to be very, very careful of.”
Councillor Phyll Bugler is also calling for a national campaign to inspect ash dieback on trees following concerns there are cases locally.
Ash dieback is a fungus that can rot a tree from the centre, for which there is no treatment.
She says this poses a major risk of an accident happening on the roads if an infected tree were to fall, especially if there were to be windy weather conditions.
The Fine Gael councillor suggests a letter should be written to the Department of Environment.
“I’m very fearful that all the roadside trees have ash dieback. Now, this has been going on for a few years, and we lost a bit of momentum during Covid. But I really think that the county council needs to write to the Department of Environment and set up a national campaign to at least survey all the roadside trees on regional and local roads. This will have to be a national plan; we need fully qualified tree surgeons to investigate these trees.”
