Hundreds of people queued outside Cork City Council's offices yesterday as 2,500 free trees were snapped up within 90 minutes.
The council had native whips or saplings, including alder, oak, hazel, spindle, blackthorn, birch, pine and rowan, to give away as part of National Tree Week, which is running until 10 March.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, the council's Communications Officer for Parks and Recreation said it was an opportunity to influence tree planting in land the council does not own.
Stephen Scully said 4,000 trees will be planted on the 20% of land in the Cork city area which is owned by the council.
"So that's an extra 2,500 trees [given away for free] that we will plant on top of the 4,000 that Cork Council will plant as well," he explained.
Mr Scully said he thinks there is a "new realisation of climate change and the importance of trees in terms of biodiversity and there's a hunger there to do the right thing for the environment.".
He said in November the council will be doing another smaller initiative and next year they might give away double amount of trees that they did yesterday.
"such as response we could have given away 5,000. So next year we'll be looking to build on what we've already done this year," he said.
