Ireland is very limited in its data on the effect of air pollution on health, according to Dr Luke Clancy of St James's Hospital. He told a seminar on air quality and health in Dublin yesterday that there were no medical representatives on the Dublin Transportation Initiative or on the Environmental Protection Agency, and no money spent on air pollution epidemiological research.
Dr Clancy said that the last time there was a clearly measurable impact on health from air pollution was in the winter of 1981-82, when there were more than 90 deaths in a single week in the Dublin metropolitan area. That was caused by winter smog.
There were similar problems in subsequent winters until the government acted in 1990 and banned the burning of bituminous coal.
Since then the focus had switched to traffic pollution, he said. It was worse in summer because of the reaction of certain pollutants from motor fuel with sunlight, and these had both acute and chronic effects.
These included increases in the incidence of bronchitis, higher levels of hospitalisation with respiratory illnesses, and increases in mortality, especially among the vulnerable, such as those already suffering from diseases like asthma, and the very old and very young.
Mr Brian McManus, principal environmental health officer with Dublin Corporation, said that while industrial and domestic emissions were under control, and air quality was generally good, studies showed that there could be a problem in the near future.
In particular a number of locations in the greater Dublin area would be at risk from nitrogen dioxide, he said. "The majority of major roadways in the city centre and those through suburbs are likely to exceed EU guide values."
The seminar was sponsored by the liquid petroleum gas industry. Mr Kieran Reid, secretary of the Irish LPG Association, said that more than 500 LPG municipal buses were now in use in Vienna.
Dr David Timoney, director of the Energy Conversion Research Centre in UCD, gave the results of a study carried out in the centre which showed that there were very much higher emissions from vehicles using gasoline than from those running on LPG.
Ms Bernie Thompson, of the Guide Friday bus tour company, said that the company had dozens of old buses converted from diesel to LPG. As a result, she said, they were 70 per cent cleaner and 30 per cent quieter.
"Improving air quality, and in particular the critical relationship between urban air quality and increasing urban traffic, will remain a major environmental management concern well into the new millennium," said the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, who opened the seminar.