COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, April 14, 2025

QUESTION NO. 16

QUESTION: Councillor E. Ó Broin

To ask the Chief Executive if South Dublin County Council have a role with regard to regulating that substandard solid fuels e.g. smoky fuels and wet firewood, are not sold in commercial outlets?

REPLY:

The Environmental Health Officer (EHO) Department of South Dublin are authorised officers under The Air Pollution Act 1987 (Solid Fuel) Regulations 2022 and carry out inspections of all solid fuel retailers in the county.

Some of the changes that now apply under the 2022 Regulations include:

• Coal products and manufactured solid fuels must have a smoke emission rate of less than 10 grams per hour.
• Coal products and manufactured solid fuels, must have a sulphur content of less than 2%.
• Fuel products which are 100% biomass products including, wood products and wood logs, supplied in units of two cubic metres or less, must have a moisture content of less than 25%.
• Wood logs supplied in units of two cubic metres or more shall be accompanied by a notice outlining the need to store and season wet wood until it is sufficiently dried.
• It will not be possible to sell turf via retail, online or other media, in public places. 

In addition to the above, retailers must ensure that each product they offer for sale is:

• Supplied or provided by a person/company that is registered with the EPA.
• That all products are included in the list of approved fuels, by the EPA.
• That all bags are suitably labelled and properly sealed.
• That a register/record is retained, of all fuels sold in the preceding twelve (12) months.

Such records should include all invoices, credit notes, and dispatch or delivery documents detailing the products purchased from a producer, including the registration number issued to the producer by the EPA

The Environmental Health  Department maintains a data base list of solid fuel merchants and retailers. This database includes:

• An alphabetical list of solid fuel retailers.
• Separate files for each solid fuel retail businesses.
• All SDCC correspondences and communications linked to each solid fuel business.
• All interactions with solid fuel retailers including all new research findings on air quality, in relation to the sale of solid fuel.

Each winter period, the Environmental Health Dept carries out approximately thirty (30) unannounced visits and inspections of solid fuel merchants across the county. These businesses are largely selected based on the following information and intelligence gathered:

• Solid fuel merchants.
• Where solid fuel retailers were non compliant in previous inspections.
• Where solid fuel products are also sold generally such as petrol filling stations, hardware stores, and grocery stores.
• New entrants into the solid fuel market.
• Where solid fuel retailers not sampled in previous year.

In October and November 2024, the Environmental Health Department of  South Dublin in conjunction with the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), carried out a targeted inspection and sampling blitz across the county. This programme extended across the entire Dublin region and was done in parallel with Dublin City Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Fingal County Council. Samples of solid fuels were taken and sent to Scotland for sulphur testing. It is expected that a similar targeted approach will occur on an annual basis, and particularly where non-conformances were witnessed.

As a result of the above collaboration, a Dublin Solid Fuel Enforcement Network (DSFEN) has now been established across the four Dublin authorities. Clear benefits of such collaboration includes pooling of resources, exchanging information and intelligence and greater awareness of the origins of fuels and the transport throughout the country.

South Dublin is also an active member of the Local Authority Solid Fuel Enforcement Group throughout Ireland. This group had their latest National meeting this week, and Environmental Health Officers from South Dublin attended. There still appears to be a large movement of solid fuels between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and from the North across the Irish Sea to Scotland. Speakers from both sides of the border reinforced their commitment to tackle suppliers of non-compliant fuels and following a review of last year’s fuel sampling results, by DECC  and the EPA, it is expected that additional enforcement  resources will be targeted this year, to this important sector of the fuel industry.