Vol. 384 No. 8
I move:
That Dáil Éireann, conscious of the danger to public health of smog in urban areas, conscious that the Minister for the Environment has taken only token steps to address the problem, conscious that the pace of progress set by the Minister is too slow, calls on the Government for a determined programme to eliminate smog as soon as possible.
The crescendo of press criticism which has descended upon the Minister for the Environment for his handling of the smog problem——
On a point of order, in the unusual circumstances in which we now find ourselves may I take it that I may table an amendment if I so wish?
We cannot hear one word.
The Chair can accept such an amendment on short notice and will have regard to the Minister's difficulties on the matter.
The crescendo of press criticism which has descended upon the Minister for the Environment for his handling of the smog problem is not undeserved. The Flynn flurry of the past two weeks was a blatant attempt to have a public relations solution to a very acute problem but he has been caught out. The smog problem has smothered the Minister, Deputy Flynn, just as the snow froze former Deputy, Michael O'Leary, in January 1982. However, unlike the former Tánaiste and Deputy Michael O'Leary, the Minister, Deputy Flynn, has had plenty of notice.
Deputies will recall my persistent attempts last spring and summer in this House, and indeed before when there was no press interest, to urge on the Minister decisions then under the Air Pollution Act. Week in, week out, I warned the Minister because of the six months notice required under the Air Pollution Act that if he did not act then this winter would bring with it an unrelieved smog problem. The Minister delayed and the winter's smog has returned probably worse than ever before.
The grossly irritating effects are not confined to those with chronic chest problems and heart disease but it is those categories who have first call on our sympathy. It is those categories who have the right to be most angered by the Minister's complacency. However, complacency has not been confined to the Minister. The city administration also deserve to be roundly condemned for inertia and for hostility to initiatives of public representatives. When my Fine Gael constituency colleague, Councillor Charlie McManus, moved a motion to declare all of Ballyfermot a smoke control zone late last year the city manager deliberately scuttled it and proposed instead a small part of Ballyfermot.
When I strongly criticised that proposal as ludicrous in a public statement, the corporation press officer, Mr. Noel Carroll, was sent on radio to attack me for daring to criticise the inadequacy and lethargy of the city manager's proposals. Now we must revert to the Minister who has not denied that it was he who prompted the city manager to be very restrictive in his attitude to the Fine Gael motion in the city council. Now the same Minister and the same manager are running for cover and proposing that an additional section of Ballyfermot be declared smoke free in January and that the rest of Ballyfermot be declared smoke free during the course of next year. As will be seen from the smog counts of the past week, even this scurried response is wholly inadequate.
First, the problem is an extensive one throughout Dublin and, to a lesser extent, in other urban areas. Secondly, in the light of experience of people in the Ballyfermot zone who converted their fireplaces in anticipation of the Minister's order and who are now refused the expected grant there is a strong reason why people should not convert their fireplaces until their areas are declared smoke control zones. It is right to emphasise that because of the delay in the Minister determining the order made by the city council — he took several months to do so, not making a decision until 8 November of this year when the smog problem had returned in style — many people throughout the summer decided because the order was made by the city council to go ahead with the conversion to gas appliances and so on. Up until today at any rate the Minister has said that they will not receive grants. Therefore, people in other areas of the city should be warned that if they take the initiative, as the people in the Ballyfermot zone did, in an effort to help reduce the smog problem they are going to be penalised by the Minister, Deputy Flynn, and the Government.
It has been suggested that the way to solve the problem of smog is to declare all of Dublin a smoke control zone but that may not be a practical proposition immediately. In particular, the amount of Exchequer funds that would be necessary immediately to meet grant applications from all over Dublin is unlikely to be available and, more importantly, unlikely to be justified. Moreover, and this is vitally important in the present context, Dublin Gas and their contractors are already overloaded with orders for the installation of domestic gas systems and there are delays of months as a result. It is a very happy development that there are so many people throughout this city converting to gas and this is the optimum result from an environmental and national interest point of view but because there are so many people wishing to convert to gas the Gas Company simply cannot cope. I have been approached by a number of my constituents and a number of people from outside my constituency to see if I could use my influence with Dublin Gas in order to get their conversions completed before Christmas. The Gas Company are doing their best but, I suppose happily for the Gas Company, they have to say they are overloaded. That is a problem at present.
Good management, therefore, requires a phased approach but the phasing must have more alacrity than the Minister's original tepid approach. Many suggestions have been made as to the further steps that should be taken, including the reduction of VAT on smokeless coal. This could be costly and insufficiently well targeted. Moreover, presumably the reduction would have to apply to other solid fuels which meet the European Community low smoke requirements. Irish made peat briquettes are in this category. Many of the suggestions made are well meaning but I believe a more comprehensive and thoughtful approach is necessary. What can we do to immediately relieve this situation? We are not yet half way through winter but there have already been several breaches of EC limits in the past number of weeks. What is realistic to expect in this area? In the light of all the circumstances, I should like to make what I believe to be a considered proposal to the Minister.
I suggest that the Minister announce his intention — and I am conscious that the provisions of the Air Pollution Act give a certain initiating role to local authorities — of declaring at least ten areas of Dublin as smoke-control zones so that there will be at least 30,000 houses in smoke-control zone areas. This would be over 30 times the number of houses already declared and at the same time would be a manageable number. Secondly, the local authorities should be invited to declare the intended zones as smoke-control zone areas as quickly as possible and oral hearings should be expeditiously arranged as soon as possible so that objections can be heard, as required under the Air Pollution Act. It is right that people in proposed smoke-control zone areas should have a right of objection and a right to have their views known but that should not delay the Minister from forthwith declaring smoke-control zones. This can be dealt with by way of my third proposal — residents of intended smoke-control zones announced by the Minister should forthwith qualify for conversion grants, even if the process through the city council and the oral hearing take some time and even if at the end of it the Minister cannot go ahead with any smoke-control zone.
My fourth point is that the capacity of Dublin Gas to meet new connections and new conversions should be greatly and urgently increased. It is a happy fact that so many people are converting to gas but I should like to know from the Minister what he or the Minister for Energy has done to increase the capacity of Dublin Gas to supply additional houses with gas and to make conversions to gas heating systems. For instance, I would highlight the biggest single area of my constituency, Blakestown, where there are many thousands of houses — I know more about the votes than about the houses, and there are 10,000 votes — but no gas supply whatever. That area is very severely affected by smog. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an increase in the capacity of Dublin Gas and its contractors to make new connections and conversions. My fifth point — and the Minister may have already done something about this — is that all new houses should be required to have a heating system which meets the air environmental standards. Sixthly, the Dublin local authorities should be directed to draw up a five year plan which would require all houses to undergo the necessary conversions in that time.
If the Minister was to adopt a plan along the lines I have suggested 30,000 houses would be immediately eligible for grants. No doubt that would have some Exchequer implications but at least the expense would be within limits and would contribute to a very early easing of the air pollution problem we have from smog, although smog is not the only air pollutant, and it would greatly reduce the health costs about which we have not heard sufficiently in this debate and to which I will revert later.
The Minister has brought much criticism on himself. Some of the critics in this House have merely jumped on the bandwagon and some of them scoffed at me on the 27 occasions I raised this issue during the past 18 months. Others without responsibility have lashed out at the Minister and have made sweeping and frequently ill-considered proposals. The Minister has been criticised for permitting peat briquettes to be used and he has been more severely criticised for not banning bituminous coal outright. Indeed the coal industry have been severely savaged by some critics for looking after their own interests. I believe that these positions and these criticisms deserve analysis and consideration to see how they measure up to the test of reasonableness.
In the first place, not alone do peat briquettes have a low smoke content but they also provide many Irish jobs. Later on in my speech I will give some statistical facts which will help people to understand that if everybody who is presently burning solid fuels for heat used peat briquettes there would be no smog problem. Therefore, from a national interest point of view, a jobs point of view and an environmental point of view there is a large argument for the use of peat briquettes. With regard to bituminous coal, the case on either environmental or job grounds is less convincing. Nonetheless the coal industry have its rights, too, and the Minister would look silly if orders made by him were struck down in the courts on grounds of unreasonableness or selectivity.
However, we have to ask the question: can bituminous coal be allowed to be used on as widespread a basis as ever? It should be said that the Irish coal industry have not ignored the problem of smog. They deserve more credit than their critics are prepared to concede. The development by the Irish coal industry of the full burning fire, though not yet proven beyond doubt, is a very worthy development. It is right that the full burning fire should be allowed in smoke-control zones on a test basis. If it works it will be a significant contributor to clean air and it could also become a very exportable and job creating patent. On the other hand if it does not stand up to practical testing the days of bituminous coal as an acceptable fuel will be clearly numbered. I would be in the vanguard of saying let us stop it but if there is a reasonable chance that the full burning fire, an Irish invention, can work it is reasonable to give it and the coal industry that chance, and certainly the evidence so far is encouraging.
One factor which must be borne in mind by decision-makers in the midst of the onslaught on air pollution is that many less well off people cannot cope with two-monthly or quarterly bills. For many buying fuel as and when required and as and when they have the money is the preferred choice rather than running up bills which they cannot pay. This is an important factor because it will be understood that the most acute problems of smog arise in areas of dense housing, especially those built prior to 1975. Most of the areas concerned are local authority areas because they are the areas which have the greatest density of housing, as is clear from the report of the environmental health officer to Dublin Corporation, from which I will quote later. These are the very areas where there is high unemployment or a high number of old age pensioners and these people do not have the money to pay the bills as they come in because there is such pressure on them to spend whatever money they have in their pockets. They would prefer to buy their fuel — coal, briquettes or a bottle of gas — when they have the money and many choose to do without it when they do not have money. They find the idea of a monthly bill difficult to cope with because the money is already spent. This is a factor which the Minister and other decision-makers must take into account. It is also, of course, an argument in favour of the solid fuels I have mentioned and of bottled gas.
Perhaps the ESB, although electricity is not largely used for heating, and Dublin Gas should give greater consideration to restoring the 10p or 50p meters which they had taken out of the houses progressively over the years. I can understand some of the reasons this was done, but it should be possible for Dublin Gas to supply secure meters so that people can pay for their gas as they use it, as they did in the old days.
Dublin Gas will have to reverse its policy on this matter. The big snag is that gas meters can be raided or broken into and the money stolen; indeed the tenants themselves who may frequently be under financial pressure may raid the meter. However, Telecom Éireann have had to devise more secure telephone coin boxes to deal with a similar problem. Dublin Gas should be made bring back meters so that people can pay for gas as they use it because the present billing method is an acute problem for those least well off in our society, who just happen to be those most directly affected by the smog, although it affects everybody.
Research shows, and the Minister will be aware of this, that there is a huge preference for an open fire; people like mar a déarfaí, their tinteán féin which gives a focal point, a hearth and heart to houses. The propensity to buy such fuels is reinforced by that desire. Luckily enough the desire for an open fire is not only met by solid fuels, but to the credit of the gas industry they have produced very authentic coal effect open fires. Regrettably, the calorific or heat value of these fires is not yet sufficient to serve as a primary source of heat but the gas industry should press ahead and rectify this shortcoming.
Of course the primary concern in all of this has to be health. I was laughed at when I originally raised this issue on the Order of Business and repeated on other days when it was being debated that people in Ballyfermot were being advised by their doctors to winter out of Ballyfermot with sons, daughters, in-laws or relations. Now everybody knows that is true. The problem is that this winter people all over Dublin are being asked to stay with relations in the country. This is happening all over Dublin and elderly people with heart problems, asthma, bronchitis or other respiratory or cardiovascular problems are being advised to winter out of the city. These conditions are greatly exacerbated by smog and perhaps smog is the very thing that triggers off these problems.
There is a great deal of evidence, although it is not proved conclusively that smog is also a contributing factor to lung cancer, so health is the first and foremost fact to be considered. Air pollution whether by smog, sulphur dioxide or lead emissions into the air is causing health problems. Tonight we are dealing with the issue of smog but we must not ignore the emissions of sulphur dioxide into the air, some of which comes from coal and the emissions of lead about which a campaign has already begun, to the Minister's credit. This is causing health problems, which cost money. Every time there is an incident of high level smog the surgeries in Ballyfermot and elsewhere in the city have larger queues of people, many of them medical card holders going to the surgeries at State expense. They get prescriptions at State expense for cough bottles, inhalers and many people are hospitalised. This all cost money. Although a grant scheme to aid conversion to low smoke heating methods would cost the Exchequer money, there is also a saving, which is very hard to quantify directly. In addition, there will be an improvement in public health. Many people who suffer ill-health, and those luckily not affected by ill-health, will be saved a great deal of irritation.
Who ever saw, as we saw in the past seven days in the city, thousands of people going around with scarves around their mouth and with masks over their nose and mouth? I never saw people having to use these masks before and it can be taken as a true indicator that the smog problem was worse than it had ever been before. Unless a much more comprehensive and urgent approach is taken to tackle this problem, no significant relief for next winter will be given to the people who suffer from smog.
The Minister, with the glow of media attention on him, must be seen to act now. It would be a terrible mistake, when the press tires of the subject, if the Minister is allowed to slink back into old habits. It was Fine Gael who introduced the Air Pollution Bill. We introduced the city council motion and we pursued this matter by way of parliamentary questions and on the Order of Business on umpteen occasions over the past 18 months. We sought and got an Adjournment debate on the subject and tonight again on our initiative we are having this debate. We welcome the public representatives who have joined our campaign in the past few weeks. We promise to continue our campaign until this problem is resolved.
Smog is primarily a media event when it is affecting people directly. It is only an event for the people themselves when it is there; when it goes away the press have other matters to cover and they forget about it. People also forget. That is what happened last winter when we had severe smog problems — not as bad as this year — and I raised the matter in this House on 18 November last year. I asked the Taoiseach if he was aware of the urgency of the problem and he said he was. I asked if the Minister would make any regulations in regard to grants. I did not get a direct answer to that question. I raised this again in December and again in February when the House resumed after the Christmas recess. On 2 March I again asked the Taoiseach if he was aware that if the Minister did not take action it would be too late for the winter of 1988-89. I raised this issue again on 3 March. We sought an Adjournment debate on the issue. We raised it again the following week, again in April after the Easter break and again in May but it was not of such great interest in May as it is not the season for smog. The Minister could lie back and he did so.
The Minister will argue that the order from the city council was 824 pages long, that it was very detailed and that he had to take his time over it. As the Minister and the House know, before a smoke control zone can be declared six months notice must be given under the Air Pollution Act. The Minister confirmed this in his announcement on November 8. Therefore the ministerial order of 8 November which declared the halfpenny stamp area in Ballyfermot, a smoke control zone will not come into effect until next May. That effectively means the winter of 1989-90. If the Minister is to wait for the results of the pilot scheme it will be too late to declare any further areas smoke control zones until the winter of 1991-92. The Minister said he would not consider making any other smoke control zone orders until he had the results of this scheme. Now the Minister has consultations with the city manager who derided Councillor MacManus's motion last October. He wants all of Ballyfermot declared a smoke free zone. He wants it done in stages — one part in January and the other in May. This is a complete reversal of the position they took up last year.
I am glad the Minister appears to have changed his mind and I hope he will say tonight that he is prepared to accept my proposal that up to 30,000 houses should be declared to be in smoke control zones. The areas are easy to identify. In the environmental health inspector's report to Dublin Corporation it is stated that the problem is most acute in those areas where there is a high density of housing. There are 16.6 houses per acre in the area of Ballyfermot which is the subject of the smoke control order. This would be fairly typical of Ballyfermot. The health officer said that this must be the area with the greatest density of housing in the city but Drimnagh is not a million miles away from Ballyfermot and it has a high density of housing with less open space. The same is true of Crumlin, Cabra and Finglas, which is the biggest of them all although it has more open space. I asked the Minister to request the corporation to declare specific areas smoke control zones. The number of houses involved would be 30,000 and it should be done in groups of 2,000 houses and not 800 houses. It should be indicated that grants would be payable forthwith in those areas for conversion to acceptable heating appliances. I appeal to the Minister to take that initiative because people will be very reluctant to transfer from one form of heating to another when they know that if they do so in advance of the order being made they will not receive a grant.
As regards the density of housing in Dublin, the report states that there are 16.6 houses per acre in the relevant part of Ballyfermot. That contrasts with areas like Foxrock where there is one house per acre, luxury indeed. That would not be a priority area. An area of 45 acres in Clontarf which has 362 houses gives a density of eight houses per acre. In Ballyfermot the density is almost twice that and I am sure that is true of other less salubrious parts of the city.
The report makes interesting reading. It highlights the extent to which people are dependent on bituminous coal. In the survey area 90 per cent of the people who use solid fuel use bituminous coal, 5.6 per cent use timber, 1.7 per cent use turf and 2.6 per cent use smokeless solid fuel. The report shows that in that small area covering 800 houses 78,527 kilograms of coal are used every week. One bag of coal contains 50 kilograms which gives a figure of 1,500 bags of bituminous coal being used in that small area every week. One of the advantages of using coal for many people is that it is delivered to the door. Bord na Móna have been somewhat slack in this respect although I am delighted with the initiative they have taken in recent times of having milkmen deliver bales of briquettes with their milk. Some of the bellmen who deliver coal also offer briquettes for sale. Up to recently the only fuel that was delivered to the door was coal and we could not expect old age pensioners to lug turf or briquettes——
It is not easy to get some of the bellmen to carry those fuels.
Some of them are carrying it and some milkmen have agreed to deliver briquettes when they are delivering milk. They are easy to stack and are fairly clean to carry. People can leave a note out for, say, bottles of milk and two bales of briquettes——
A great breakfast.
At least they would not be freezing while they were having their breakfast. It is up to Bord na Móna to put the distribution network in place. If people want to continue using bituminous coal I hope they will try this slow burning fire. If it works it will be a contribution to the air pollution problem and, if not, it should be banned.
The Deputy has one minute left, perhaps he will avail of it now instead of tomorrow night?
I am delighted that at least the subject is getting the sort of attention it deserves. I hope that the attention will not fade with the smog and that, by next winter, sufficient steps will have been taken to prepare for next year so that smog will not be a problem. I also hope that there will be a continuous attack on this and all forms of air pollution and that we will never again have the problems we experienced this year.
