Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten, for attending today. His Department, under his guidance, announced last week additional funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, for the provision of a number of additional air quality monitoring stations nationwide. Through the Minister's Department, I have made a formal request to the EPA so that, as part of this programme, it will seek to install immediately a permanent air quality monitoring station at the Irish Cement plant in Mungret, Limerick. People living in the greater Mungret-Raheen-Dooradoyle-Limerick area would like to see this station. The Minister is probably aware that there is currently an application before Limerick City and County Council from Irish Cement seeking to put in place an alternative fuels plant on the site. The licence for the overall site is before the EPA at present.

I welcome the fact that the Minister is providing an additional fund to the EPA for the erection of a permanent air monitoring station. Good practice ordains that one of the sites for monitoring air quality should be at the Irish Cement site in Mungret, Limerick. There is major concern among people living in the area. Many have young families. They are very reasonable people and they have concerns about the emissions from the plant. Bearing in mind the robustness of the licensing regime of the EPA in respect of measuring air quality, I understand there is no permanent air monitoring site at the Irish Cement plant in Limerick at present. Cement manufacturing is heavy industry so air monitoring is required immediately. The people of the area are entitled to it.

The Minister is putting funding in place to allow the EPA to erect the permanent air monitoring stations. Clearly, the Irish Cement plant in Mungret should be at the front of the queue. There have been numerous public meetings with residents in the area and the wider public in Limerick. This has been brought to a head with the current application before Limerick City and County Council for the alternative fuel plant on the site. As the Minister is probably aware, however, the licensing of the alternative fuel plant will have to be done by the EPA itself. Apart from that, the licence of the overall site is currently under review in the EPA.

I welcome the fact that the Minister has appeared before the Seanad to deal with this issue. I ask for a commitment that he will take the matter up with the EPA and that the EPA will erect a permanent air monitoring site at the Irish Cement plant in Mungret, Limerick.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Senator Kieran O'Donnell for raising this issue with me. A number of important EU directives seek to protect our environment from the harmful effects of air pollution and maintain the quality of the air we breathe. The current air quality standards are contained in the clean air for Europe directive of 2008 and the fourth daughter directive of the European Union. The directives include rules governing how member states should monitor, assess and manage ambient air quality. The EPA is tasked with co-ordinating and managing the monitoring programme in Ireland. Under the directives, the EU member states must designate zones for managing air quality. For Ireland, four zones have been defined in the air quality standards regulations of 2011. The zones in place in Ireland in 2017 are zone A, comprising the Dublin conurbation, zone B, comprising the Cork conurbation, zone C, comprising 23 large towns with a population of more than 15,000, and zone D, the remaining area of Ireland. Ireland currently has a network of 31 monitoring stations which measure levels of air pollutants in the four zones. This information is delivered to the public nearly in real time at www.airquality.epa.ie. The numbers and locations of the monitoring equipment for each pollutant are determined by the requirements of the directives for ambient air monitoring in each zone. I am sure the Senator is already aware that there is one such monitoring station in County Limerick, located in the Shannon Estuary at Askeaton.

Following a comprehensive review of the current status of ambient air quality monitoring in Ireland, the EPA is developing a new national ambient air quality monitoring programme under section 65 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act. This process has included a review of the adequacy of the current network for determining compliance with the European and national standards for air quality and for the provision of information to the public about local air quality. I am not satisfied with the network of 31 monitoring stations in meeting that need. As I mentioned, we already have a monitoring station in Askeaton in Limerick. There is a proposed revised EPA monitoring programme. It proposes an additional monitoring site in Limerick city and an indicative monitoring site in Abbeyfeale. I welcome the proposed expansion of the network. It is important to remember that this is about providing the public, in particular, with information regarding local air quality.This is of particular significance given the growing evidence that air pollution is more damaging to human health than previously understood, both in terms of thresholds above which health impacts can occur and in the range of those impacts. As I have said on numerous occasions, poor air quality in Ireland directly results in the deaths of four people every day and many more people end up presenting in hospitals, ending up on trolleys in accident and emergency departments and having long stays in hospital, so by improving air quality we can have a direct impact on the health of our nation and on the congestion we see in the regional hospital in Limerick and hospitals right across this country. What this network is about is looking at air quality, not just from one particular plant, but right across the city of Limerick. I refer to diesel engines, which are a huge problem in Dublin, and at other sources of pollution. We can monitor those over time.

In regard to individual premises, there is a specific licensing regime in place which is operated and managed by the EPA and there would be specific quite rigid requirements in regard to that. The EPA recently issued information regarding the air quality from some plants in the region of Limerick which highlighted problems with their emissions. It may not necessarily be the one that is closest to home either. The EPA is quite transparent in regard to this and it is quite critical of operations where they do not meet the standards required. It puts all that into the public domain. I have confidence in the monitoring regime the EPA has in place in regard to all the large emitters across the country but this network is not about what goes into the air but the air we breathe on a day-to-day basis. We are quite lucky in that we meet and comply with EU standards on air quality. However, if we look at the international World Health Organization standards, we are not meeting those. The best way to improve our standard of air quality is to be able to monitor and measure that and see the progress over time.

I do not think we can do that with 31 stations which is why I have directed the EPA to increase the number. It will also have a knock-on benefit of being able to give an accurate reflection in regard to pollen count. People with allergies will be able to know, based on actual predictions, about the pollen count and the read in Ireland. Up to now, we were basing it on projections based on data collected in the UK.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the fact the EPA will erect two new monitoring stations, one in Limerick city and one in Abbeyfeale. What is the timeframe for and the location of the Limerick city station? It is important it deals with issues about which people have major concerns and on which they need reassurance, including the emissions from plants such as the Irish Cement plant in Mungret. The Minister should be aware of the concern among the public. A march is being organised by people in Limerick city this Saturday. These people have genuine concerns. They are reasonable people with young families living in Dooradoyle, Raheen, the Mungret area where the Irish Cement plant is located and other areas. What is the timeframe for the permanent air quality monitoring station in Limerick city? It should be located in an area where it would be able to detect the air quality around the Irish Cement plant and other areas as well. I welcome the commitment that there will be a permanent EPA monitoring station in Limerick city, which currently has no station.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The location in Limerick city will be one that will best reflect the air quality in the city as a whole. Currently, the EPA has 31 stations to try to give a read across the country, which is virtually impossible to do. By doubling the number of stations, it will be able to give a far more accurate national read and it will be able look at locations in our cities that can best and accurately reflect what is going on in those cities. The EPA will use a scientific formula in that regard. It will be possible to monitor the output from all the plants in the mid-west catchment and, in the near future, to tabulate those against the reading in the two new stations and the three monitoring stations. All of that information will be live.

On the timeframe, I recently met board members of the EPA who outlined their proposals for upgrading the monitoring network. I fully support these proposals and confirmed to them at that time that my Department will provide whatever funding is required. The director general of the EPA, Ms Laura Burke, has since written to me with an estimate of the additional resources required by the agency - capital and current funding of €5 million over five years, with five additional staff with specialist expertise in air quality monitoring and forecasting. The extra resources will enable the EPA to provide extra support to local authorities in developing new capabilities in air quality monitoring and I very much welcome the proposal to expand the network and look forward to the EPA developing its capacity to meet the future air quality needs of Irish citizens. The physical roll-out of the network is the easy part, and the EPA has been actively involved in that since my discussion with it, but the actual analysis, predictions and using that data will be the bigger challenge, which is why I have approved the additional staffing.

On the timeline for the specific locations, very specialist equipment has to be ordered in. The EPA is finalising its list of locations. I have given it the go-ahead on the capital side and, from a financial point of view, there is no reason many of those stations cannot be rolled out this year but I do not know, from a logistical point of view, the timelines involved in providing power and providing network connections back. The important thing is that once they are installed, they are live so that the public in Limerick and every other part of the country can see exactly what is happening at their particular station or a network of stations around that catchment. I hope this can be done as quickly as possible and I will ask the EPA to come back to Senator O'Donnell with timelines on the roll out of the network, specifically the two proposed stations in County Limerick.

Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. We are well over time.

Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister. I would ask that Limerick city be prioritised for the erection of these permanent monitoring stations and that when the EPA is renewing its licence regimes for companies, such as Irish Cement, that it would await the outcome of this air monitoring as part of its review mechanism.

Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)
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Unfortunately, we are out of time. I thank the Senator and the Minister.