Gavan Reilly: Turf war raises more than just the political heat

Let’s just use the phrase ‘turf war’ in the headline and get it out of the way. What the row about banning turf actually tells us is not that some parts of government are detached from rural life (though maybe it is) - what it tells us is that ministers now apparently can’t be trusted to speak to each other.

What it boils down to, it seems, is a different understanding of something they have already agreed upon. The entire coalition has agreed on a nationwide ban on so-called smoky coal, extending nationwide a ban which already exists in most urban areas. Eamon Ryan, however, believes it is not legally possible to distinguish between low quality solid fuels – meaning sod turf (as well as low-quality solid wood products) would be banned by logical extension. This has either gone unnoticed, or is totally rejected, by the other parties in the same coalition; they signed off on the coal ban not realising/agreeing that it would likely extend to other fuels by default.

If this was the full extent of a disagreement between coalition partners, it would be embarrassing but at least forgiveable. Disagreements about the effect of policies are nothing new, and it is always the case that some people take longer to realise the impact of a new measure. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael might in those circumstances be criticised as slow learners, but there would be no ill intent involved.

If only it were that simple. What we have, instead, is the unseemly vision of coalition leaders openly contradicting each other: Leo Varadkar telling an internal party meeting the ban has been delayed, then claiming the following day at the ban doesn’t exist in the first place, as it has never been discussed by the three leaders… while, on the same day, Eamon Ryan insists the ban is not delayed at all, and is merely being fine-tuned (hence the dynamite soundbite about ‘not sending Granny to prison for burning turf’).

The former dispute could simply be put down to honest misunderstanding; the latter is much harder to square. This dispute is no longer just a case of parties disagreeing about the effects of a policy: they’re now disagreeing about simple conversations with each other. Even supporters of the government will concede that this is a worrying development.

Geeks like me with more pedantic memories will recall a Cabinet meeting in mid-August 2020 where Leo Varadkar, bounced into a meeting where new Covid restrictions were implemented, quipped: “If we keep doing business like this, we won’t be doing business for long.” His complaint was that Cabinet had been a rushed affair, with no prior conflab where political concerns could be frankly thrashed out. The lessons were learned: the coalition leaders and their chiefs of staff now meet every Monday night, ahead of Cabinet on Tuesdays.

That forum has worked well in the two years since, but you must wonder what’s going on if a discussion about a politically sensitive topic can now take place, and for two of the three leaders to come away with completely different understandings of what was agreed.