Following the announcement that the government has agreed draft regulations on the sale and use of solid fuels, including turf, one TD has slammed the proposals.
The regulations on solid fuels are set to come into effect from October 31 this year.
According to Laois-Offaly independent TD Carol Nolan, the rules will see a “total ban” on the sale of turf online or through any other media including advertising in local press, or from retail premises.
The new regulations will also prohibit the sale of wood logs which do not have a moisture content of 25% or less, moving to 20% by September 1, 2025.
Nolan also noted any wood logs sold in larger volumes will be required to come with instructions for the purchaser on how to dry the wood.
“The vast majority of ordinary people in rural Ireland will react with bewildered incredulity at the farcical requirements and the new prohibitions being fostered upon them,” she argued.
The TD claimed the regulation represented “a complete cave-in by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael party members to a, quite frankly, bizarre agenda that appears determined to infantilise rural Ireland”.
“Indeed, I would go further and suggest that what we are witnessing here is precisely the kind of creeping criminalisation that I predicted would happen over the lifetime of this government.
Announcing the regulations today, the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications said that people with turbary rights and all other customary practices in respect of turf will be unaffected by these draft regulations.
However, Nolan expressed skepticism over this.
She said: “The minister [Eamon Ryan] can say all he likes that people with turbary rights and all other customary practices in respect of turf will be unaffected by these draft regulations, but no one with an ounce of cop-on believes that this position will be maintained.
“These regulations are a testament to the gullibility of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Oireachtas members who have been captured hook, line and sinker by an extreme Green Party agenda.
“It would be absolutely laughable if the issue was not so serious,” Nolan concluded.