Warning on directive for straight-to-ground burial

Cash-strapped Limerick families may plan “Muslim-type funerals” if coffinless burials are permitted in city cemeteries, a former mayor has claimed.

Cllr Jim Long has warned against a new directive to legislate for casket-free burials.

He told a meeting of Limerick City Council’s environment committee: “It is futile to put a small area of a cemetery for uncoffined burials because what will happen is, for example, I might have lost a member of a family, and I cannot pay for a coffin because it is too expensive.