Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 24 May 2000

Vol. 519 No. 6

Written Answers. - Air Pollution.

Bernard J. Durkan

Ceist:

197 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to incidents of air pollution throughout the country; whether, in any such cases, public health safety guidelines are breached; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14747/00]

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. D. Wallace)

I refer to the Environmental Protection Agency's report, Ireland's Environment: A Millennium Report. This confirms that Irish air quality is generally good, and all current national and EU air quality standards are complied with.

In the case of tropospheric – low-level – ozone no air quality standards are set; instead EU Directive 92/72/EEC on air pollution by ozone establishes thresholds for ozone in air above which there may be effects on human health and vegetation. Provision is made for the reporting of exceedances to the European Commission, and in certain circumstances, for the issuing of public information or public warnings. The thresholds are broadly consistent with guide values promulgated by the World Health Organisation.

Public information requirements are triggered by a population information threshold of 180 micrograms of ozone per cubic metre of air –µg/m3 – and a population warning threshold of 360 µg/m3, both averaged over one hour. No public information measures are required for exceedances of a lower, reporting only, threshold for the protection of human health of 110 µg/m3 measured over an eight-hour averaging period. There has been no exceedance in Ireland of the population warning threshold, or of the population information threshold since 1995. However, the lower, reporting, threshold was exceeded 17 times over ten days in 1998. This contrasts sharply with the situation in many European countries where the population information and population warning thresholds are regularly exceeded, and the lower reporting threshold is exceeded on as many as 50 days per annum in many central and southern European countries.

The EPA report states that levels of tropospheric ozone recorded in Ireland are normally very low and Ireland, quite unlike many European countries, does not have an environmental problem with this pollutant. The EPA concludes that ozone is not the threat to human health in Ireland that it is in many European countries.