James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government has failed to introduce a nationwide ban on smoky coal with negative effects in towns such as Enniscorthy, New Ross and Gorey in my native county. Professor John Sodeau stated this week that air pollution in my home town of Enniscorthy has reached an extremely dangerous level. There have been 12 breaches of Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, safety limits since Christmas. Some of these have reached ten times the EU safe limits. Asthma sufferers living in Enniscorthy, New Ross and Gorey have been warned to stay indoors during these times. That is totally unacceptable.

People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, asthma and other lung problems cannot get the supports they need. Yet, here is a simple solution to help those people by giving them safe air to breathe. Some 80% of the population is covered by the smoky coal ban but 20% is not. Why are those 20% of the people being treated differently from the rest of the nation? For the other 80% the ban has existed in some places for almost 30 years. However, the Government has taken fright because I understand one coal importer has threatened legal action. I am sure there has not been a regulation in the history of the State that a Government sought to introduce where there was not a threat of some form or legal action. For the Government to be seen to bow to that kind of legal pressure is only to invite further legal pressure on every other regulation the State proposes to introduce.

I was always taught that the primary role of the State is to protect its people. In this case the State is showing cowardice in the face of a legal threat and is not protecting the people. More pertinently, it is not protecting the 20% who are forced to live in unsafe air conditions. I do not like having to bring up negative things about my home town or other towns in my native county, but this is dangerous and unacceptable, and something needs to be done.

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