Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The national air quality monitoring network is operated, maintained, and monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme. My Department has provided funding for a significant upgrade to the network in recent years, and as a consequence the number of monitoring stations has increased from 29 in 2017 to 114 today. The expansion will be complete when the remaining stations are connected in 2023 which will bring the final number of stations to 116 - three times greater than the number required under the EU Air Quality Directive.

All stations collect air quality data for a range of pollutants to provide information to the public, and for assessment against European legal limit values and World Health Organisation guideline values. The EPA produce an annual report on Air Quality in Ireland which provides an overview of our air quality and key issues that impact upon it.

The EPA decide upon the most appropriate locations based on best practice and EU requirements, and questions in relation to proposed sites may be addressed to them directly. Similarly, the EPA is also responsible for monitoring data from each station, and questions in this regard may also be addressed to them directly. 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 website, www.airquality.ie.

Following on from this expansion, the LIFE EMERALD project uses the information from our monitoring network to provide a national 3-day air quality forecast and will in the coming months produce near real-time mapping of air pollutants throughout the country, and create historical maps of air pollutants.

The project will improve Ireland’s ambient air quality management capabilities, by using an air quality modelling system to gain a better understanding of the factors contributing to poor air quality and develop a system that will provide better information to the public.