A service station in Co. Limerick is selling bags of 'decorative hardened Irish mud' in a bid to raise awareness of the upcoming turf ban.
McNulty's Fuels' says its 'Irish mud' is advertised for "ornamental use only" and is not to be burned in a fire.
The service station's owner Eric McNulty, told Limerick Live he put up the sign as a "fun-but-serious way to highlight the struggles he faces as a business owner".
A ban on the sale of turf comes into effect from the end of October following a Daíl vote in April of this year.
Last September, Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan announced new standards for solid domestic fuels would be introduced across the State within a year.
The upcoming turf ban aims to leave historic turbary rights intact – which involve the right to dig, cut and carry away turf from bogland to use as fuel for one's house.
Mr Ryan has said people with turbary rights “will continue to be permitted to extract peat to heat their own dwelling, but will not be permitted to place it on the market for sale or distribution to others.”
Those who cut turf will, however, be permitted to pass their yield onto friends and family for free.
According to the European Environment Agency's 2020 report on Air Quality in Europe, poor air quality causes premature deaths, and each year some 1,300 people die in Ireland due to air pollution from the burning of solid fuels such as turf.
Despite Eric's stance on the upcoming turf ban, the Limerick man has qualifications in renewable energy and had previously worked in the field before returning home to Ireland.
Eric claims that while the government has been pushing renewable energy for the past ten years, there are few jobs in the field - a reality that has placed him in the "unorthodox" position of owning a rural fuel station.
