Written answers

Thursday, 2 June 2022

Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Air Quality

Photo of Cathal CroweCathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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147. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the infrastructure that is at the disposal of his Department and the State overall to monitor and track air pollution. [28257/22]

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The State’s main tool for monitoring ambient air quality is the national Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme, which is operated and maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rather than by my Department. However, my Department has provided funding for a significant upgrade to the network in recent years, and the number of monitoring stations has increased from 29 in 2017 to 102 today.The final expansion of the network will be completed this year and the EPA has recently advised this will increase the number of official stations to 116.All stations collect air quality data for a range of pollutants in order to provide information to the public, and for assessment against European legal limit values and World Health Organisation guideline values. Details of the locations of all monitoring stations currently in operation, along with real-time and historic data from each station, can be found at the EPA-operated website, www.airquality.ie.

While Ireland has traditionally focused on measurements from monitoring stations to assess air quality, it is recognised that there is a need to provide more local air quality information throughout the country. The intention is that the information generated through monitoring, will be augmented by a newly developed modelling and forecasting capability, which will provide an ongoing air quality forecast service to the public.

This work is being developed as part of a new EU LIFE funded project called LIFE EMERALD, which will use the information from our monitoring network to provide a national 3-day air quality forecast and near real-time mapping of air pollutants throughout the country. This will improve our ambient air quality management capabilities, and enable us to gain a better understanding of the factors contributing to poor air quality, while developing a system that will provide enhanced information to the public.

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