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LAST UPDATE | 26 Apr 2022
BACKBENCH TDS FROM Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have told Environment Minister Eamon Ryan that they were opposed to the planned restrictions on turf sales in what has been described as “robust” meetings.
Ryan met separately this afternoon with TDs from both parties before the Dáil began a debate on a Sinn Féin motion that seeks to scrap the government’s plans.
The minister was told that pushing ahead with the current plans was threatening the stability of the Government.
It is understood that Fine Gael backbenchers “spelt it out loud and clear” with those in attendance at this afternoon’s meeting describing Ryan as “clearly rattled” by the “heated discussions”.
It was put to the minister that the government is in jeopardy if the current measures are pushed through, it is understood, with Ryan told to be “taken aback” by the suggestion.
In a statement released after the Fine Gael meeting, Brendan Griffin TD and Senator Sean Kyne said that members of their party “had a robust meeting with Minister Ryan regarding the sale and distribution of turf”.
“With all that is happening right now, in terms of the war, escalating energy bills, future fuel sources, Minister Ryan’s proposals as mooted in recent weeks should not proceed. This was made clear to Minister Ryan today,” the said.
Minister Ryan agreed to meet us again in the future to continue discussions on this issue which is absolutely integral to many householders across rural Ireland.
Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen said that members of his party told the minister that they were also opposed to the plans as currently envisaged and that revisions were required.
Cowen told The Journal last night that turf-cutting was already “a diminishing practice” but that some people are dependant on turf from their local community.
He also pointed the Government numbers stating that the “mathematics that determine this government’s continuance will in no small way ensure that there is a resolution to our acceptance brought to bear as soon as possible”.
The Fianna Fáil meeting with the minister was also described as heated with “frank discussions”.
The minister was told that new proposals will have to be agreed by all parties in government and ”right now he hasn’t got that”.
Minister Ryan has said previously that the proposals would not see a ban on the burning of turf and that those with extraction rights would still be permitted to cut turf for their own home heating.
Instead, Ryan said the draft regulations are designed to focus on the commercial sale of turf and that there will be no ban on the sharing of turf with family members or neighbours.
In response to a parliamentary question (PQ) earlier this month, Ryan said that the new regulations would instead prevent people cutting turf and placing it “on the market for sale or distribution to others”.
Speaking at the weekend, however, the Green Party leader said the new regulations had not yet been signed off on and that he should have told the Dáil that they were a “draft” only.
It is now proposed that communities of less than 500 people would exempt from the regulations.
Ryan was told at today’s meeting that such a cap was “madness” and that a more realistic proposal would be 5,000.
The minster also informed TDs at the meeting today that gas and electricity prices could increase five-fold by this winter, with those in attendance today stating for that reason, the timing of such turf restrictions is “bananas”.
When asked today if the government was willing to lose TDs over the proposals, a spokesperson for Minister Ryan said they were “sure it won’t come to that”.
The spokesperson said there were “strong opinions” on the issue but that this afternoon’s meeting with TDs was “positive”.
They added that the discussion points from today’s meeting would be taken on board by the minister, with finalised plans coming to government “in a few weeks”.
It’s understood that the government is still planning to “go forward with regulations” from 1 September.
Previous governments have sought to ban smoky coal but there were legal threats from within the industry that this would not be permitted unless the ban also included other fuels such as peat and wood.
Speaking this morning, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that “ultimately smoky coal is the villain, the real enemy” and that “turf is dying out as a basic fuel”.
“People in rural Ireland and politically in parts of the west and midlands use turf from bogs that they have or share with neighbours and it’s not proposed to ban that, so I think a pragmatic solution can be found,” he said.
Sinn Féín leader Mary Lou McDonald TD earlier told the Dáil that the proposal was “unfair” and “unworkable”, adding that it “shouldn’t go ahead”.
A motion by her party is currently being debated in the Dáil that calls on the government to “scrap plans to ban the sale of turf”.
The motion also calls on the government to cancel the scheduled Carbon Tax increase that will come into effect from next week.
Introducing the motion, Sinn Féin TD Claire Kerrane said the use of turf had changed and that the only people who use or sell turf now are “doing it on a small scale”.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik TD hit out at what she said was a “phony urban-rural war whipped up by backbenchers from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael”.
Bacik also said that Sinn Féin comments on the matter suggested the party was “not serious about climate action”.
Speaking earlier today, Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan said the dangers of turf burning have been known for some time and that Fine Gael has “sat on it” while in government.
“We knew from the Ballymun report thirty years ago that air pollution from burning fossil fuels, particularly turf, was giving us some of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the world. Fine Gael did nothing about that for 30 years,” Hourigan said.
“For a party who sat on for 10 years to now say it’s premature is unacceptable.”
Bríd Smith TD of People Before Profit said today that her party only supports a ban on turf sales if those who use turf are prioritised for a retrofitting grant. She said she will be submitting an amendment to Sinn Féin’s motion reflecting that call.
“Chunks of the midlands and the west have people that are reliant on turf and we need to give them the sort of resources that they need for the just transition to happen,” she said.
With reporting by Christina Finn
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Handy distraction from fact that greens are adding €23 to a 1000 litre full of heating oil in next few days. Do they even know that there is a cost of living crisis happening for many people. Do FFG even care or is holding onto the Green Party votes to remain in government more important to them???
@M Bowe: And Mr Putin has added how much?? If we had followed the advice of the Greens years ago we wouldn’t be in hock to the likes of Putin…. We would have invested in sustainable, local green energy and probably be able to export energy as well !! When will we ever learn…. It was a nobrainer years ago and it still is if we have the sense to grasp the opportunity before it’s too late.
@Jerriko17: a lot of the country did follow the advice of the Greens years ago and bought diesel cars, how has that worked out?
@Jerriko17: Is this all you are going to do on here repeat the same stuff the green party does.
we can grasp all we want but our effect on the world is minimal.
Meantime in Ireland people are cold and hungry as they have to choose between food or fuel.
Its happening already. Or do they not count as they are not green!
@Andrew Giles: I think you’re attributing far too much power and influence to the GP?!! Surely you’re not blaming the Greens for the utter lies put out regarding emissions by the big car manufacturers and for which they were brought to account and paid massive (not enough, IMO) fines. People didn’t go out and buy these cars on the advice of the Greens, they bought them because their vrt/tax was low and based on false figures. All governments all over the world were hoodwinked.
@Gary Kearney: Are you going to come on and repeat the rámeis that what we do in Ireland has no effect!!! You and me only have one vote…. Are you saying that we don’t count either?
People are having to choose between fuel and food because of Mr Putin not Mr Ryan!!!! Something Mr Ryan warned us about years ago and trying to ignore that Fact won’t make it disappear.
@Jerriko17: don’t cod yourself, the GP pushed and encouraged diesel cars, vrt low, don’t know about that, the average diesel car cost more than its petrol equivalent, and still do. Running costs were lower until recently
@Jerriko17: we’d be in hock to no one if our resources of hadn’t been signed away with no benefit to the country. I almost said signed away free, but that would imply no one was paid!!!!
@Jerriko17:
@Jerriko17:
I suppose “lessons must be learned” Michael?!!
@Simon Connolly: when is Dublin getting the cheap turf
Well hope this coming winter isn’t going to be a very cold one. People won’t be able to heat their homes shortly.
@Dave Barrett: it’ll be a nuclear winter so won’t make a difference. We’ll all be dying at ports and stations tryin to get away.
@Rob Gale: Jesus! Gotta finish my shelter and get the provisions in. Toilet rolls, bread.
A “solution”, really!?, probably just a ‘friendly compromise over tea’ that makes FFFG look like they’re fighting for their ‘turf-burning’ constituents while they laugh with their constituents in their constituency offices about how their ‘tree-hugging’ Green partners keep coming up with these crazy ideas!!
…and the Greens will make it look like they never back down in the face of their mighty coalition partners…
…meanwhile, in the real world we ALL struggle to heat our homes, pay the bills, and buy the basics…
@Spartacus Ireland: The real crazy ideas in the “real world” are to keep burning fossil fuels, keep driving filthy diesel cars, keep on importing oil and gas at ever increasing prices from the likes of Putin, keep importing fresh food when we should be growing more here, keep driving family farmers out of business by not properly supporting them and their communities and by not helping them to look after the environment they know and respect. And the carbon tax and banning fossil fuel sales are nothing to what’s coming because of our failure to grasp the nettle in the last 15 or 20 years…we can’t afford to buy oil, gas, fertiliser, steel, timber, building products etc etc so we have to do something about it and it’s no going to be easy.
OOO PLEASE LET THERE BE A ELECTION GOODBYE MR RYAN
Hell of a lot of political point scoring off a piece of legislation that should be a complete no-brainer. Selling our bogs off to be burnt is neither an efficient or responsible way to heat your house.
Sure, there is a cultural dimension to it, but if rural Ireland cannot even shift a tradition that is so extremely illogical and counterproductive in current times, than it is surely and truly f**ked.
As for those who really have no alternatives, this legislation barely effect them, as anyone who has bothered to read the details knows.
Rural dwellers are being had by those who are making lots of money off strip-mining our most important natural habitat.
@Urban Living Dublin: Aye, but despite all that, and it has merit, I’d say Eamo can either drop Turf altogether from his proposals, or push things all the way to threatening a election, from which his Party would undoubtedly lose the most. This is now a ‘dem up der in Dublin’ row and nothing else will matter to the people who use locally harvested turf, or their local TDs.
@Urban Living Dublin: This has to be the most out of touch “Urban Living” clueless comment on turf cutting.
How is burning turf “counterproductive” to a pensioner in a cold cottage in the countryside in Galway or Mayo.
You would prefer them to freeze for the winter.
Generations have cut turf & used it as a primary source of heat, someone like yourself living in a city dwelling with central heating & piped gas have no idea what it’s like for elderly people, living in isolated rural areas,. Please don’t comment on an issue you don’t understand or that simply doesn’t affect you.
How about doing away with politicians travel expenses, no need to incentivise travel by car or airplane, ban the use of private cars inside the M50.
This would have a much bigger impact but I guess a bigger backlash.
@Eoin Roche: If your goal is seeing the collapse of the current Government or the green party, fair enough.
Don’t forget however that the political centre is shifting towards urban/suburban Ireland, as it has been for decades. The wind of change is also with environmentalism. For better or worse, these are today’s political realities.
As a current-day urbanite myself, looking at all the resistance coming from rural Ireland to any change that might avoid environmental and climate disaster, change that we all have to undergo, I wonder if this turf issue has just become the next hill rural Ireland seems to be willing to die on.
Then again, I also remind myself that, that outside politics and the Journal comment board, most opinion is not really that split by rural/urban divide.
@Urban Living Dublin: What are your thoughts on government banning the likes of Irish briquettes (and in the future turf), and replacing it with imported equivalents.
How does that make sense on any planet?
@Ken Murphy: Enlighten me so. Can a pensioner that currently buys turf in a shop also buy other less smoky fuels in a shop? If the answer is ‘yes’ than this legislation will have no affect on them.
Likewise, this legislation will also not have any effect on anyone cutting their own turf, nor will it have any practical effect on someone who sends a bit of money a neighbour’s way in exchange for some turf.
As the world moves on, this practice is on its way out (as some in the pro-turf crowd have already pointed out). It seems that the current Government, including the Greens, are happy for it to die a natural death.
What this legislation will affect, is the industrial-scale strip-mining of our bogs and selling of peat products. The damage to our environment and to air quality is to the use of private car within the M50 and far more so than politicians travel expenses. Both of which I am perfectly supportive of restricting.
@David Corrigan: The level of import and the level of domestic production are completely incomparable. In a situation where imports would 100% cover lost domestic production, you would be right. But this situation doesn’t exist. It’s not even close.
@Urban Living Dublin: …to our environment and to air quality is equivalent to or worse than the use of private car…
@Urban Living Dublin: 100% match or not, the briquettes are still being processed the same way and contributing to climate change the EXACT same way as if that material was processed in Ireland.
It makes no sense what they are doing.
@David Corrigan: the aim of the legislation is to ban any smoky fuel, imported or not.
@Urban Living Dublin: I think you are missing my point but that’s ok.
@David Corrigan: what point am I missing here? If there is a ban on the sale of smoky fuels (like peat briquettes), than this would also extend to imported smoky fuels i.e. no replacement. Please explain whatever point I may otherwise be missing.
@Urban Living Dublin: I admire your patience and clarity in the face of such a lack of basic understanding and misrepresentation of the issues.
@Urban Living Dublin: So you said your usual stuff and it is the same as always, condescending.
How are the people who this will effect and how will the people who will be affected by the raise in prices due to carbon ta, eat and stay warm at the same time?
@Jerriko17: What’s this a self congratulatory hug by the two people who lack empathy for others.
Here is a shocking idea, all these other people may not be wrong!
@Urban Living Dublin: It’s only a no brainer if you don’t fully understand what the designation of raised bogs to SAC areas actually means…..it’s not just about turf.
Decades ago the government assisted with helping people to plant forests on bog land for the purpose of growing timber.
So now we’re not supposed to cut turf but we are no longer allowed to harvest our timber and are prohibited from planting any more.
We are not supposed to clear drains to prevent flooding of property or reclaimed farmland.
We are not even supposed to hunt pheasant or rabbit on our own land or cull the invasive grey squirrel.
Bogs that have been planted with birch and spruce will be overgrown in a decade if the land is not managed….have a look at a family plot that has not been cut since the introduction of SAC areas and you’ll find the bog has been taken over by gorse and trees to the detriment of insects amphibians, ground nesting and predatory birds.
The same trees are spreading from the spreading ground to the raised bog.
It’s not a no brainer issue and a lot more complicated than you think.
If I own a bit of land on the bog where I live and want to switch my heating source from turf and oil to a small solar farm and timber, under current legislation I’m prevented from doing so.
Does that seem right to you?
@Urban Living Dublin: Turf prices in rural areas are relatively stable due to basic laws of supply and demand. There is a human element here that you are missing. And it seems the Government is also missing it too. No one questions the issues around removing fossil fuels on an industrial scale, however, a very large portion of rural Ireland do not have room for virtue signalling in their household budget. Until the Greens phase out turf by massively subsidising a renewable retrofit for those impacted, any other high ground laissez faire approach will result in a huge backlash, I.e where we are right now.
@Ken Murphy: you obviously didn’t read the article, anyone in communities of 500 or less won’t be affected, those already cutting turf for their own use won’t be affected, this is purely stopping commercial stripping of the bog by commercial entities. If a little old person wants to hear their home with inefficient fuel that causes health problems then they’re still entitled to.
@Gary Kearney: Well said.
A few months ago they couldn’t do anything with developers AG advice would be needs the right to earn and property rights. Once it rural Ireland sure fire away.
You can heat a home with turf for 600/800. For some people its spiritual occasion each year. Private owner cuts and you rear it. This is what issue is. for many. and then in total contradiction to what they say on developers / pension funds renting back to us. We cannot legislate.
Pay the people to not produce turf, to sink your Carbon.
Much sense was said today of Green Nonsense, like the peat harvesting ban which almost shut our horticultural industry, so now we import that peat. So its harvested elsewhere and there is one planet as far as I am aware of, so you moved the deckchair. Its all nonsense , it all taxes and nothing that scientifically assists us if we are true to our goal.
Where’s our corrib gas gone too, after all the huffing and puffing. Any oil out there or is that sold also
@Gerard Heanue: I could be wrong but I think we are still using the corrib gas.
“Bogs are an important carbon sink” on one hand. Yet on another “bogs release methane gas as a by product of plant decomposition that takes place without oxygen. Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas. But, molecule for molecule, it is said to be up to 23 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide”
Also from a health point of view. Traffic jams and red lights are much worse than burning turf. Yet our transport minister and green party leader has done nothing.
“The direct effects cause premature aging, excessive fatigue, and mental illness and make some problems in the musculoskeletal system, digestive system, nervous system, respiratory system, cardiovascular system. The indirect influences include pure reliance on the car, accidents, traffic congestion and air pollution”
@leartius: You think Rome was built overnight? For the first time in decades (perhaps ever) national budgets for sustainable travel and public transport have greatly exceeded those for private motor travel.
Here more on the power of bogs to absorb carbon: https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/peatlands-and-climate-change
Great…. Let this be the start of the fall of Éamonn “cabbage head” Ryan and his minions!
What politicians anywhere would spend so much time arguing about turf for heaven sake only in Ireland
Fair play to Ring, he now has the ball at HIS OWN foot, and he needs to drum up support from his fellow Rural FG TDs to drive this Viper into the wilderness. Now is the time for O’Cuiv , Cowan , McGuinness to drive the nail info Martin and force him to listen. Come-on Healy- Rea’s , Fitzmaurice , Mattie McGrath , bang this Tool off every wall ye can bang him off. We have put up with enough from Ryan.
Hot air specialists shouting and banging fists on the table to Ryan won’t make a difference. He couldn’t change anything even if he wanted to. The decisions are made by FF/FG.
@Rob Gale: He is the recognised hot air table thumper in the Dail. It would be hilarious to watch them go at it.
I’m so glad that there starting to faze out turf, it’s smelley and dirty, and the sooner the better.
In every other parliamentary democracy in the world, rebel MPs are a regular fact of political life – and except in rare circumstances, government goes on! Life goes on! A long-standing system which allows the cabinet to almost always get its way in Irish majority governments by punishing rebel TDs with permanent silencing for the remainder of the term, is one of the greatest obstacles to truly representative democracy in this country.
What should happen in cases like these is very simple – TDs rebel, the government loses a vote, it therefore either scraps the policy or redrafts it to be more in keeping with the democratic will of the Oireachtas – and life carries on without further complication or uproar. That is, after all, literally what sitting TDs are paid for – scrutinising legislative proposals which come from other TDs or from the cabinet, and deciding whether said policies are worthy of becoming law, whether they need some re-thinking, or whether they shouldn’t pass at all.
That is one of the core tenets of representative democracy. It is bizarre that Ireland almost uniquely neuters its legislative body and transfers supreme power to the executive, and yet we almost never hear about it, a fuss is rarely made about it and most people are probably unaware of just how authoritarian our system really is because it doesn’t receive the coverage that it should.
It is *ridiculous* that the “stability of the government” should be in question because a group of TDs disagree with the cabinet on one specific issue. Absolutely ludicrous. Almost nowhere else in the democratic world are parliaments run this way. The idea that losing one vote to rebel backbenchers should result in a collapse of government or even a general election is absolute madness of the highest order.
The reason the system is laid out this way is because party leaderships are used to wielding this kind of unchecked legislative power without a check or balance. I believe this to be one of the reasons the public instinctively voted not to abolish the Seanad, seeing as Oireachtas oversight of cabinet and executive is so weak to begin with and people were naturally wary of ceding more control to the small handful of ministers and party leaders who frequently run roughshod over the basic tenets of the democratic process.
It’s one of the reasons I find the manufactured outrage over Sinn Féin’s “democratic centralism” so absurd. Yes, it’s entirely wrong that policies are not made by that party’s elected representatives and nobody but those elected representatives, but this is how virtually every political party in Ireland – with the exceptions of the Soc Dems and in a more limited capacity Renua – operate. And people need to be aware of this. It is a strange cudgel for any party to deploy against any other party when virtually all of them are engaged in the same undemocratic practises.
It’s one of the greatest obstacles we face in achieving accountable, democratically representative governance.
If the cabinet loses this vote, so be it. Redraft it or axe it, and move on. To take any more drastic action would be petulance of the highest order – petulance which we as a nation really cannot afford from our elected government, with so many serious issues and crises to deal with.
This paradigm must end. Ireland cannot be fully democratic until it does.
With smart metering of electricity, it will be possible for the consumer to buy in power at a very low cost, when the wind is blowing strongly. After all it is the poor consumer who has been paying the highest electric charges in the EU, to put all the wind power stations there in the first place. This will compensate for putting a brake on the turf.
Maybe Ryan thinks this is his moment – but unlike banning smoking indoors or charging for plastic bags keeping warm during the winter is not an option. How would it be if suddenly you could not buy natural gas for heating in Dublin city next year? There is an Ireland outside the M50 – even large parts of County Dublin have no mains gas or piped water, or street lighting…
Yes, at too European price!
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