Government won't 'put your granny in prison for burning turf': Ryan

Turf cutting by Thompson's Bakery employees at Nadd, North Cork, back in 1947.

Eamon Ryan reiterated on Thursday that there was no pause on the sale of turf.

The Minister for Climate said the Government “would not put your granny in prison for burning turf” and rejected claims that Fine Gael and the Green Party were at loggerheads on the issue.

Mr Ryan said there had been false information put out around the issue, and that fears about the ban were unfounded.

“It’s not we’re going to put your granny in prison for burning turf down the road, it’s about quality of life,” he said.

“We will introduce the regulation in September, that timeline makes sense.

“It's not paused.

Cutting turf

“There’s broad agreement we will introduce smoky coal ban, everyone agrees we do it at point of sale, its on distribution system, there’s broad agreement on this.

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and for Transport Eamon Ryan TD. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

“It’s easy to say; ‘This is the Greens telling rural Ireland what to do’, that’s not the case.” Mr Ryan said he believed that people who own bog land would still be able to cut turf even after the ban.

“People are scaring people,” he said.

“We’re not going after people in their own bog. It was never designed to get down to neighbour getting turf from a neighbour, it was designed to regulate big distribution systems, we will still be selling peat briquettes because science says that can be done so it doesn’t damage health."

Unified approach

The Green Party leader called for a whole of Government and community approach on the issue.

“The scale of the change we need to make is so great that if we do it as a party-political divisive issue we won’t get people behind it, this has to belong to every party and community,” Eamon Ryan said.

“The environmental community learned more than anyone else, that shaking your finger doesn’t work either, we have to create a better alternative.

“In politics, we have a central role, this Government has the plans in place to do that now. We need to deliver it, part of that is air quality, for years governments have fudged the issue, had paused because it’s hard and has political risk but that leaves 1300 people a year dying prematurely of respiratory disease, there is broad agreement we need to address that.” Eamon Ryan said he, the Tánaiste and Taoiseach talked on Monday night about the issue “to get the details right”.

“I’m absolutely happy we can overcome the differences, there are always differences.”