The Cabinet is expected to approve the publication of Ireland’s first Clean Air Strategy at its weekly meeting this morning.
The strategy will identify measures the State will take to reduce air pollution in Ireland and ensure that air quality in Ireland achieves the levels set out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for 2040.
The strategy is being taken by Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan. Ireland has never had a large industrial base. However, there were high levels of air pollution in the past, especially in urban areas, caused by smoky fuels and by emissions from cars, buses and trucks.
It is understood Mr Ryan will tell colleagues there have seen significant improvements in air quality in Ireland in recent decades. However, poor air pollution persists in some areas and continues to cause damage to people’s health and the environment.
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Currently, air pollution is estimated to cause 1,300 to 1,400 deaths every year and is a factor behind some of the incidents of stroke, heart disease, lung disease, lung cancer, asthma and dementia.
Efforts by Mr Ryan to introduce severe restrictions on turf-cutting met with widespread opposition in rural areas, especially in relation to the ban on the selling-on of turf to non-family members.
The regulations were amended to allow people with turbary rights to continue to gift or sell turf. However, no sale of turf is allowed to take place by way of the internet or advertising in local press, or from retail premises.
However, because the new WHO guidelines are twice as onerous as the ones they replace, it is certain the issue of the burning of peat will be revisited over the next decade.
Research indicates that the introduction of the “smoky coal ban” in Dublin in 1990 has resulted in approximately 350 fewer mortalities per year, reducing cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and respiratory mortality in the general population.
High numbers of air pollution incidents were recorded in Ennis, Co Clare and Tralee, Co Kerry last year. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report found air quality levels exceeded the recommended daily limit for particulate matter (known as PM10) on 21 days in Ennis last year and on 14 days in Tralee.
Other monitoring stations where there were a relatively high number of such daily readings included Ringsend in Dublin (11 days); Edenderry, Co Offaly (10); Longford town (nine); Macroom, Co Cork (seven) and Letterkenny, Co Donegal (six).
Some of this was attributed to the burning of smoky fumes with high levels of particulates such as turn, smoky coal and wood logs that had not been kiln-dried before use. New nationwide bans on smoky coals and undried wood logs have been introduced although there is some evidence that some of these banned fuels are being sold on the black market.
