Call on Minister Ryan to reconsider ban on burning bushes on farmland

The Minister for Environment, Eamon Ryan, is being asked to reconsider an upcoming ban on the licensing of burning of bushes on farmland.

The regulations to extend the exemption for the burning of agricultural green waste, which had expired on January 1 this year, was extended until March 1 last.

Earlier this year, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications announced that the exemption will reopen for a final three-month period from September 1 to November 30, 2023 to allow the agricultural sector deal with waste accumulated in the interim.

Minister Ryan said in January this will be the final time such an extension will be granted. The department explained that the decision to extend this exemption for one final time arose from the recommendations made in a recent study, commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to examine alternative measures to the burning of agricultural green waste within the Irish context and assess the practicality of such alternatives.

Discussing his motion at the April meeting of the local authority, dairy farmer Cllr John Dolan said the burning of bushes is part and parcel of land reclamation and farm maintenance every year, which is done with a permit at certain times and no green matter is ever burned as it's left to dry out first.

As part of the new ACREs environmental scheme, some ditches will have to be repurposed or removed for a redesign and he asked how the material would be disposed of when the ban comes into force. It's been suggested that it will be collected from farms for shredding which he believes is very carbon inefficient to have vehicles going around the country collecting bushes.

While the ban is to stop carbon emissions, he believes any solution, no detail of which have been put forward, will be a lot worse environmentally than the current regime.

Calling on the Minister to extend the date and reconsider the ban, the Kilgarvan-based public representative said it is a very important issue in rural Ireland.

Supporting his call, Mayor Cllr Vinny McCormack stated that it's important that the Minister clarifies what he intends to do in the future. If farmers are moving to a new system, they need information. He said it makes no sense to clog up the roads with vehicles collecting bushes.

Fine Gael Cllr Tom Farrell reminded the attendance that anyone who wants to burn bushes on farmland has to apply for a permit from the council and notify gardai, and they are only allowed to do this at very limited times of the year.

Green Cllr Louise Heavin welcomed the discussion on the upcoming ban on burning bushes, saying it's very important now that farmers come up with an alternative that releases less carbon into the atmosphere. This could involve looking at the best way of hedgerow management to release less carbon.

Having listened to the discussion, Mayor Cllr Vinny McCormack suggested that they write to Minister for Environment, Eamon Ryan, and Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, on what the government is proposing when the ban comes into force.

Responding, Cllr John Dolan told the meeting that the burning of bushes falls specifically under Minister Ryan's remit, adding that the Minister for Agriculture has done a lot of working looking for alternatives to burning bushes but he understood he had yet to find one.

The council, in a written reply to Cllr Dolan's motion, said the matter is receiving attention at national level and “it is the council’s understanding that the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications will be engaging with the farming organisations regarding the ban and the alternatives to burning during the course of this year”.