James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I again thank the Senator for raising this very important issue around air quality. I assure her of the Government's commitment to addressing the challenges facing Ireland in that context. The Government is committed to addressing this critical public health and environmental challenge through measures including the introduction of enhanced solid fuel regulations, increased support for local authority air quality enforcement and the implementation of Ireland's first clean air strategy. This further highlights the priority the Government has afforded to cleaning the air that we breathe to protect the health and well-being of the people we serve.

The clean air strategy describes how we will enhance and protect the quality of the air that we breathe and realise the full environmental and health benefits of cleaner air through a comprehensive cross-government programme of policies and measures that will tackle all sources of air pollution, including those in the transport, agriculture and residential sectors. The strategy also builds on the ambition of the national climate action plan, which includes a range of actions required to release the synergies between current air and climate policy. This includes the electrification of the road transport fleet, taking action in regard to ammonia, improving the energy efficiency of our homes and reducing our reliance on solid fuels. The provision of data from the EPA, including the annual inventory and projections, as well as our enhanced national ambient air quality monitoring programme, gives us a comprehensive evidence base to tackle the source of air pollution that needs to be addressed.

While Ireland now has a world-class ambient air quality monitoring network with real-time data available online, its effectiveness and potential can only be realised once the general public becomes more aware of and knowledgeable about how to access and interpret the data. The key measures projected to help reduce our overall annual emissions in transport are set out in greater detail in the national air pollution control programme, with taxation policy and an increase in the electrification of the national fleet delivering the most significant reductions. These will be complemented by increasingly stringent vehicle emissions standards, fuel standards and a move to more sustainable modes of transport, in particular in our towns and cities. Overall, the Government remains strongly committed to improving our air quality for the benefit of all and is taking a range of measures to do so.