Athlone-area councillors urge Harris to scrap controversial turf bill

Hard-hitting criticism of controversial new legislation which is designed to restrict the sale and distribution of turf was voiced by several local councillors at a recent meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District.

A motion from Independent Ireland's Cllr Paul Hogan, asking that the District write to to Taoiseach Simon Harris asking him to scrap the Air Pollution Act (Amendment) Bill 2024, was unanimously supported, with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil members joining in criticism of the Government legislation.

Cllr Hogan described the bill as representing "an attempt to criminalise those who primarily burn turf to heat their homes".

He said he had looked at the Environmental Protection Agency's website on the the morning of last week's meeting and it showed that air quality monitoring stations in Athlone and in almost all other parts of the country were marked green, indicating a high standard of air quality.

"To me, this (legislation) is an attempt by the Green Party, I suppose, to ram this Green policy down our throats," he said.

Cllr Hogan said "rural people who burn sticks and burn turf" would be disproportionately impacted by the legislation, which he predicted would lead to an increase in fuel poverty.

"The measures that are contained in (the Air Pollution Act) are really worrying," he said.

"They include enhanced powers for enforcement staff of the local authority, including the ability to halt vehicles, search premises, seize, detain, and/or destroy unapproved materials.

"Now I certainly want to put on record here that I do not support local government staff having permission to go onto people's property to seize turf out of their sheds because there might be a concern from the Green Party Minister of the day that it may be contributing to emissions.

"There are thousands of other areas that could be looked at in terms of emissions, if they were serious about it, in terms of bigger industries."

Fine Gael's Cllr John Dolan described the legislation as "disgraceful" and said the increased energy efficiency of new houses, along with housing retrofit works, would mean that turf-cutting would "die out naturally" over time without a need for any action to be taken.

"This (legislation) is coming from a person that doesn't understand rural Ireland," said Cllr Dolan.

Independent councillor Kevin 'Boxer' Moran said he fully supported the motion "and would go further by blaming Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for standing by and supporting Eamon Ryan."

'Boxer' said the council members were not opposed to environmentally friendly policies, "but there's a limit, and this is a step too far".

Fianna Fáil duo Aengus O'Rourke and Frankie Keena also backed Cllr Hogan's motion. "As houses become more modern, turf-cutting will in time run its course and I think it should be allowed to run its course," said Cllr O'Rourke.

Cllr Keena said action was needed as it would be "wrong to have local authority staff going into people's sheds to see what fuel they're burning".

Cllr Hogan thanked his colleagues for their support, and it was agreed that a letter would be written to the Taoiseach on the matter.

Speaking on Friday, October 18, the Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin described some of the claims made about the new legislation as scaremongering.

"The legislation respects turbary rights, the rights of people historically and traditionally who have used turf (from) their own bogs to fuel their own homes. That will continue," said Mr Martin.

"There's no question of people going into people's homes and taking turf, penalising them, or anything like that. That's scaremongering to an extraordinary degree."