As if residents of north Tipperary weren't unfortunate enough in having a lower life expectancy than their neighbours in Limerick or Clare, they are now finding that dying is an expensive business.
The region is running out of graveyard space and, if the current policy continues where the council covers graveyard budgets, more than £1 million will have to be paid from the council's resources on land acquisitions over the next five years.
But a strategic policy committee has recommended that local communities pay 75 per cent of the cost of additional cemeteries in parishes.
The right to be buried with one's family members is the key issue. Two Mile Borris, the largest parish in the diocese of Cashel and Emly with 3,600 people, has become the flashpoint for the controversy. Four miles from Thurles, it covers about 16 square miles and has three cemeteries, one of which is full.
Mr Enda Burke, a resident, said people wanted to be buried in family graves in their local cemetery. The parish had already raised more than £50,000 for school and community projects, he added.
But Cllr Mattie Ryan, the policy committee chairman, said that under the draft policy the council would only pay for a graveyard where there was an absolute need.
On June 18th, council members are to vote on the recommendation that the council cover only 25 per cent of the cost of a graveyard extension.
Cllr Ryan said the community group graveyard system was running successfully in his neighbouring parish of Rear cross. The council contributed £10,000 of the £70,000 cost of the new graveyard in the early 90s and the community had almost paid off its loan, charging £150 per grave space.
Senator Kathleen O'Meara, a committee member, said it was less expensive for a community group to become involved. But councillors in the Thurles area, including the Independent TD, Mr Michael Lowry, are against the new policy, feeling it will deny people's wishes to be buried in their own locality.
Mr Lowry said it was an example of "number-crunching". Rural communities were already under pressure from outside factors and the social dimension was being taken out of policy-making. "It is another effort to justify the fact that they are putting money and numbers and policies before people and people's emotions and feelings and considerations."