Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Further Revised Estimate)
1:00 pm
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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On air quality, although I do not have the figures in front of me, there has been a dramatic improvement in the number of live real-time stations. There has been very significant investment in that area.
To highlight a further development I am looking at, I recently received an interesting presentation from an Irish company which is looking at low-cost sensor equipment that could be put on telephone masts. My recollection is that Microsoft is looking to put it on some of its antennae and using it almost as a citizen science air quality monitoring system. It is not just the official Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, function but it is the ability to use the Internet of things, with wireless connected remote sensory systems to improve our air quality monitoring. In that case, it is not just air quality monitoring for human health with regard to particulate matter but also the potential for measuring methane, nitrous oxides, ammonia and other greenhouse gases in the air. This will help, for example, organisations to monitor and assess their own emissions. There are many more devices coming to measure air quality, not just for human health but for environmental back-up. That is where we want to go.