1,400 people die each year because of poor air quality. The main reason is the emissions of NO2 from cars. It kills at least half of the overall number.
The Irish government has covered up the scandal.
It uses EU minimum standards for the amounts of particles in the air. These are four times higher than the standards advised by the WHO. It noted that there has been reduced lung growth in European cities with high levels of traffic.
But, worse, the Irish state does not monitor air quality properly and then boasts that it has a clean bill of health.
The Environmental Protection Agency deliberately places air monitoring stations at some distance apart from each other. Bizarrely, they are often not placed in areas of heavy traffic. In total, there are only 113 monitoring stations in the whole country.
No wonder that recent research sponsored by Dublin City Council and Google, which used a monitoring vehicle that travelled around the city, found much higher levels of air pollution.
We need a rapid transition to free public transport to reduce the number of cars on the roads. Why would anyone want to be stuck in traffic jams if they could get reliable buses to work or home?
Free public transport is a far better option than the neoliberal ‘solution’ of imposing charges. These are a form of class discrimination because only the wealthy can access cities.
The Green Party has totally failed. We need a real eco-socialist alternative.
