Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 May 2018
197. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the quantity of ammonia that was emitted to the atmosphere in each of the past five years here as a result of the importation and spreading of animal manure from Northern Ireland. [22934/18]
View answerIreland’s national ammonia inventory does not include emissions from manures or slurries originating in Northern Ireland. Neither my Department nor the Environmental Protection Agency collects statistics on the volumes of manure or slurry crossing the border. However, I understand from my colleague the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, that his Department collects these statistics and that the volumes are very small, being in the order of less than 7,000 tonnes in either direction for each of the last two years. In the context of the roughly 45,000,000 tonnes of manure generated within the country each year, any such figure from Northern Ireland will have minimal impact on total ammonia emissions to air.
