County council ‘not going after’ people burning garden waste

HELICOPTERS spying from the air or “nosey parker” neighbours need not worry people burning garden waste in Kerry.

A commonsense approach is being adopted by Kerry County Council, which will not be enforcing the Waste Management Act to the letter when it comes to burning green waste.

But if a nuisance is being caused by smoke from such fires, the council will be forced to act, a meeting was told in Killarney.

South Kerry Independent Alliance councillor Michael Gleeson called for commonsense to prevail in regard to the burning of briars, tree branches and normal non-recyclable garden materials such as potato stalks.

“Local authorities should not alienate goodwill by an extreme interpretation of the law,” he said.

He added that some people were living in fear of their neighbours reporting them as soon as they “cracked a match.”

“This little country is gone stone mad with regulations. It’s a terrible state of affairs if people can’t burn a few bushes they cut off the side of the road.

“I’d ask the council to make it known they can do this in Kerry. It should be made clear this is not a crime and people won’t have helicopters looking down on them, or nosey parkers peeping in.”

Independent councillor Brendan Cronin claimed EU legislators were not in touch with reality and our Government was too willing to accept EU directives.

Environment engineer Gerard O’Sullivan said waste was defined by EU directives and if such directives were interpreted strictly, burning bushes was illegal.

“But, we’re not going after people for it,” he stated.

He said the council’s enforcement activities were primarily focussed on the illegal burning of household refuse and other similar waste types and that would continue to be the case.

However, he also said the council would have to take action where the uncontrolled burning of green materials posed a fire risk and a nuisance to neighbours.