Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

54 Chapter 2: Air Research Ireland has a vibrant environmental research community, including internationally recognised centres for atmospheric research. Significant funders of such research include the EPA, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, the Irish Research Council, the Department of Transport, and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Communicating the findings and recommendations of such research to as wide an audience as possible, and to the relevant policymakers, is one of its most important outcomes, as it ensures that policy development is based on the most up-to-date evidence. To achieve this, the Air Quality Unit of DECC has established a Clean Air Research Forum, which brings together researchers, policymakers and other key stakeholders to share information and results and to discuss knowledge gaps and future research priorities. There is a broad range of published and ongoing air quality research. Ongoing research includes EPA-funded projects on the sources of air pollutants including ports (the PortAIR project), railways (the STATION-AIR project) and agriculture (the IMAGE project). Recently published projects include Irish research on the knowledge, attitudes and perception of air pollution in Ireland (Kelly and Quintyne, 2023) and sources of air pollution in Ireland (Ovadnevaite et al. , 2021). There is also a growing volume of Irish research on the assessment of the health impacts of air pollution (Byrne et al. , 2020; Ó Domhnaill et al. , 2022; ESRI, 2023, 2024; Lyons et al. , 2024). The health impacts of air pollution are further discussed in Chapter 14. 6. Conclusions Health and air quality There is no safe level of air pollution, as reflected in the 2021 revision of the WHO air quality guidelines, which substantially tightened guideline limits for PM 2.5 and NO 2 . Ireland’s Clean Air Strategy ambition is to move towards meeting these air quality guideline limits by 2040. The review of the Cleaner Air for Europe Directive will set a similar trajectory towards compliance with WHO guidelines at EU level. While the positive impact on health would be significant, achieving the WHO interim and final guideline limits will be challenging, and the scale of the challenge has been highlighted in recent EPA air quality reports. Key to achieving this ambition will be implementing the Clean Air Strategy, the Dublin Air Quality Plan and related actions from the Climate Action Plan (DECC, 2024). Action on air quality Air quality can be improved by changing our behaviour, individually and collectively, so that we burn fewer fossil fuels to heat our homes and businesses and fuel our vehicles. Protecting health will require the engagement of the public to support and implement actions that achieve this reduction in fossil fuel use. Ammonia emissions NH 3 emissions from agriculture have a negative impact on sensitive plant and animal species. NH 3 is also responsible for the formation of secondary PM 2.5 during the atmospheric transport of NH 3 . National emissions are currently breaching Ireland’s emission targets. Implementing all currently planned actions will be needed to reduce the emissions of this pollutant to meet Ireland’s international commitments. Expanding the evidence base There has been an extensive expansion in the monitoring of air pollutants in Ireland. The number of stations has increased from 29 in 2017 to the current 115 station network. Air quality information from the expanded network, supplemented by hourly modelled maps, is updated hourly and available on www.epa.ie and www. airquality.ie. A forecast, predicting air quality for today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, has also been available on www.epa.ie and www.airquality.ie since November 2023. The forecast enables members of the public to make informed decisions about their planned activities. PM 2.5 , NO 2 and NH 3 continue to be our pollutants of concern.