OPINION (AN COLÚN): Turf ban proposal causing anger and worry in Offaly

Ireland is currently trying to drastically cut carbon emissions to be in line with targets set by the European Union, while the Government is also rolling out a multi-billion euro retrofit scheme to help houses nationally reduce energy consumption.
When it was announced some weeks ago that the sale of turf would be banned from next September, a great deal of heated discussion ensued. Some of this heated debate calmed down when the Taoiseach stated on April 27 that there will be no ban on the sharing of turf for those with rights to harvest the fuel.
However, many people in Offaly remain highly sceptical and critical of the government's motives and intentions. There's a lot of anger in the county because we rightly feel we have been dealt a bad and unfair hand in this whole matter, which all stems from a badly thought out decarbonisation programme.
The media narrative is sometimes a simple one, namely that we all must get greener and the people of rural Ireland must get with the programme.
On the face of it, the decarbonisation programme seems reasonable and good. However, when you analyze it a bit and drill down into the facts then you come to the conclusion that a lot of it is somewhat cackhanded.
We are all green. Who in their right mind couldn't be? But the nuances of the programme, the way it is being rolled out leaves a lot to be desired.
Sometimes urbanites, wearing their green-tinted goggles, are indulging in patronising put-downs of us poor country yokels. As they patronise, they come across as being brainwashed members of the Chinese Communist Party, completely suffused with the environmental ideology and unable to see beyond it.
This week the members of Offaly County Council stated they are as green as anybody else but the government needs to show some commonsense and abandon its cliff-edge turf plan. All the councillors bar one supported a motion put forward by Councillor Ken Smollen which called on the government to row back back on its plan. The councillors, quite rightly and reasonably, want the government to abandon its aim to stop the commercial sale of turf in September until an affordable alternative is available. They pointed out that many thousands of families throughout Ireland depend on the use of commercially purchased turf for heating and cooking in their homes.
Many people in Offaly are facing fuel poverty and the proposed ban of the commercial sale of turf is causing them huge concern. Cllr Seán O'Brien made a few excellent points. He said it is unintelligent and insensitive to expect people who have been using turf for many years to suddenly abandon it. He said it was like a guillotine was being brutally and harshly applied to the issue. Cllr O'Brien said he felt the plan smacked of “a D4 thought process, whereby people with no regard or understanding of rural areas are making harsh and incorrect decisions. It is obvious that the people who are making these decisions are not really cognisant of what rural Ireland is all about. He strongly criticised the government's retrofitting programme. “It is ridiculously slow,” he remarked. “It is a failure thus far, simply because an awful lot of people can't afford it.” He pointed out that turf-cutting is in many people's DNA. “They have cut at small banks of turf for years, and it is painful for them to think of giving that up.”
43% of people in Offaly depend on solid fuel for heating and cooking. Most of these people don't have turbary rights. A lot of them are not in the way of getting gifts of turf from relatives, neighbours or friends. They buy their peat in shops.
People in Offaly are also irritated and angry because the transition period away from turf was supposed to be over the 2020s until 2030, but the fast forward button has been applied to it.
During the May meeting of Birr Municipal District the Senior Engineer in the Housing Section of the Council told the councillors that tenants in new Council houses won't be allowed to have wood pellet stoves. The houses will be heated by heat pumps. No naked flames, in heating formats, will be permissible. The Council is installing air to water heat pumps in their new houses, which is sometimes underfloor heating, sometimes via radiators in the rooms.
We all like to stare into the flames of a real fire. It is soothing, an important facet of our mental wellbeing. As a species we have enjoyed this process for countless millennia. Now, Councils and governments throughout the West are stating that they have access to a deeper wisdom than the practice of countless millennia. They are saying they they know better, that staring into real fires and daydreaming is bad for your health. It's potentially carcinogenic. You don't want to die, do you? Here, have a house with an air to water heat pump. Some people are saying, No thanks.