Ireland met all of its EU legal requirements on air quality in 2021 but did not meet more demanding World Health Organisation guidelines, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
WHO guidelines were exceeded for pollutants including fine particulate matter (PM); nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and ozone (O₃) due to widespread burning of solid fuel in towns and villages, and traffic using fossil fuels in cities.
Ireland and Europe should move towards achieving the health-based WHO air quality guidelines, the agency recommends in its report on air quality in Ireland for 2021.
The report reiterates there are approximately 1,300 premature deaths annually in Ireland due to poor air quality from PM2.5.
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“The choices we make in how we heat our homes and how we travel directly impacts the quality of the air we breathe,” it adds.
While air quality in Ireland “is generally good and compares favourably with many of our European neighbours, there are concerning localised issues which lead to poor air quality”.
Air monitoring results from EPA stations across Ireland show PM2.5, mainly from burning solid fuel in homes and particularly during winter months, and NO₂ mainly from road traffic, “remain the main threats to good air quality”.
Ambient (outdoor) air pollution is recognised as an environmental risk to health. According to WHO, it accounts for an estimated 4 million deaths per year worldwide due to stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma.
In children and adults, both short- and long-term exposure to ambient air pollution can lead to reduced lung function, respiratory infections and aggravated asthma.
To address these threats to public health, the report calls for the planned national clean air strategy to be published and fully implemented. “Local Authorities must provide more resources to increase air enforcement activities,” it adds, while national investment in clean public transport is needed across the country.
“Meeting the new WHO guidelines for air quality will be a major challenge for the country, however the report identifies a number of solutions to move towards these guideline levels,’’ said Dr Micheál Lehane, director of the EPA’s Office of Radiation Protection & Environmental Monitoring.
EPA programme manager Pat Byrne added: “In our towns and villages monitoring identifies high levels of particulate matter associated with burning solid fuels and in our larger cities high levels of nitrogen dioxide is associated with road traffic. There are options and solutions to help improve the air we breathe. Changes we make to how we heat our homes and finding alternative ways to travel can immediately impact our local air quality.’’
The EPA recommends households move away from using smoky fuels and using cleaner alternatives where possible.
On reducing car pollution, it advises: “Walk, cycle or take public transport, even for the last kilometre — if you can”. It recommends leaving the car at home for one day a week or more, embracing carpooling where possible, working from home for at least one day a week and going electric with car purchases, if consumers can afford it.
Addressing fuel poverty will bring a tangible improvement in air quality, it underlines.
The EPA, working with local authorities and other public bodies, had established 97 air monitoring stations, by the end of 2021. The network will be completed with 116 stations by the end of 2022.
The EPA continually monitors air quality across Ireland and provides the air quality index for health and real-time results online at https://airquality.ie/
Results are updated hourly on the website, and people can log on at any time to check whether the current air quality is good, fair or poor.
