Irish Examiner View: Proposed turf ban needs an Irish solution to an Irish problem

A pile of turf extracted from a peat bog in rural Ireland.

There have been many Irish solutions to a variety of Irish problems down the years but, for the current administration, finding an answer to the increasingly divisive issue of exploiting bogs and burning the turf that comes from them is ratcheting up to become a ‘culchie versus townie’ row.

While Climate Minister and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan is insisting this is not the case — that it is a “quality of life” issue and not a burning desire on his party’s behalf to ban all fossil fuels peremptorily — solutions can still be found to the row.

With deep misgivings over his proposals coming from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs in western and midland counties, particularly concerning landowners’ abilities to extricate turf from bogs on their own land to use as fuel in their own homes, and perhaps even in those of neighbours and friends, Mr Ryan is insisting it is the “big distribution” of turf he and his party are going after.

His determination that nobody’s granny is going to be sent to jail for burning turf still does not sit easy with people in rural areas for whom the cutting and burning of turf has been a lifetime occupation. 

His insistence that cleaner air quality across the board is the main issue doesn’t convince them either. In a situation where city people can still travel a few kilometres to secure coal that is banned in urban areas but sold freely in rural towns and villages, few will be convinced that the greater aim here is other than to ultimately ban turf extrication and burning.

Mr Ryan is perfectly correct when he says that if turf bans are to be pursued on a solely party-political basis, they will go nowhere. He is right, too, when he says broad Government agreement is needed to effect the sort of change the Green Party is pursuing.

However, as there is a public perception out there, rightly or wrongly, that Mr Ryan and his party are prepared to lay waste to centuries of Irish tradition, it is going to be an uphill struggle for him and the Greens to persuade people otherwise, despite our desperate need to tackle climate collapse.

As is ever the case, but rarely the practice, what is needed here is for a collaborative Government effort to highlight what it wants to achieve and not a futile gaslight exercise which confuses people rather than enlighten them.

Firm, even-handed guidelines need to be set in place, with broad agreement across the three Coalition parties, if this particular fire is not to get out of hand quickly.

There is an Irish solution for this Irish problem, but Mr Ryan and his Government colleagues simply have to have the wit to find it.