Smoky coal still being burned in Cork despite ban, amid ‘evidence’ of it being smuggled into county

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

Smoky coal is still being burnt by some households in County Cork with a county council official saying there is “no doubt” that bituminous coal is being smuggled in and sold despite a nationwide ban four years ago.

The issue was raised at this month’s meeting of Cork County Council’s Southern Committee by Cllr Patrick Donovan who said he encountered smog from smoky coal in a housing estate in Carrigaline recently.

“The whole place was just totally congested with smog. There was smoky coal being burnt in the properties, there's no question of it. It was blatantly obvious in the air that there was more being burnt there than smokeless coal,” he said.

The Fianna Fail councillor asked what the council does to enforce the ban on bituminous coal. “How are we inspecting it? Is it just in shops? Are we going out into estates at evening time and looking around?” he asked.

Ted O'Leary of the council’s Environmental Directorate responded that the inspection focus is mainly on fuel sellers rather than on households.

“That's the way the legislation is structured, where our focus is mainly on the wholesale and retail side of solid fuel sales, where it is illegal to sell non-compliant product.”

“It shouldn’t be possible to purchase such coal through regular supply chains, but there is no doubt that some of this stuff is being smuggled in. There is evidence of that,” he said, adding that while it’s illegal to sell bituminous coal, “it's not illegal to use it.”

National solid fuel regulations introduced in 2022 banned bituminous (smoky) coal, wet wood and most turf sales in an effort to combat air pollution and improve public health. Mr O’Leary said Cork County Council carries out around 100 inspections a year of solid fuel retailers to ensure they’re complying with the regulations.

“The vast majority of your regular retail outlets and garage outlets are generally compliant. They're selling products supplied by major suppliers and wholesalers. Probably the problem areas are kind of unofficial sales, maybe at the side of the road. And we do the best we can to monitor those and we monitor online sales. But they are by their nature more difficult to deal with. We close them down in one location and they open up again,” he said.

“We do from time-to-time target particular estates where people highlight that there are problems. We might visit an estate and do leaflet drops and that kind of thing but that would be really the only tool available to us. It is an awareness issue, making the public aware that by burning non-compliant products, be it wet timber, turf, or any of these non-compliant illegal products, they're impacting on their own health,” Mr O’Leary said.