Dr. Ann McGarry:

We were asked about the research underpinning the national radon control strategy. As the committee will be aware, the strategy was launched early this year by the then Minister, Commissioner Hogan.

One part of the research that we are undertaking is to update the national survey. The national survey was undertaken in the 1990s and we are undertaking a further piece of research to ensure that we have the up-to-date baseline information on radon levels and the number of houses likely to be above the reference level at the start. It would be our intention, as the strategy develops and we role it out, that at regular intervals we would repeat this work to see whether the work is being effective. As the committee will be aware, the overall aim of the national radon control strategy is to reduce the number of deaths from radon in Ireland.

Other work that has been undertaken is on the research on the effectiveness of passive radon sumps and radon barriers together. Only yesterday we held the second meeting of the inter-agency group that oversees the implementation of the control strategy. We agreed that this is important work that needs to begin now and it will begin in the next number of months.

We also discussed at our meeting yesterday the issue of radon awareness. The RPII, now the Office of Radiological Protection within EPA, has for many years undertaken work to improve the awareness of radon among members of the public. What we need now is to review the work that has been done to date with a view to having a national radon awareness campaign. It was agreed at the group yesterday that we should begin that now.

There will be a report to Government on the implementation of the strategy in April 2015. A lot of the detail of what is going on at present will be included in that report. We agreed that it is important that we have a report to the public as well and that will form part of the work.