I will start by welcoming the Bill. Given that it amends the Air Pollution Act 1987, it is somewhat overdue in terms of updating a lot of the terminology. I have looked through it. While I welcome the Bill, its contents and the idea behind it, I want to start with a criticism. This is a criticism that I frequently make of legislation, particularly updating or amending legislation of this sort. When we look at the table of contents of this Bill, it amends the 1987 Act. Every section refers to things like,"Amendment of section 15 of the principal Act". I understand how that works, but when this becomes law, a layperson will not be able to read it because it makes no sense in isolation. A person would have to find the 1987 Act, look to see what section 15 says, see which particular part it amends and then apply the amendment themselves. We do this all the time, and what we are doing is creating greater distance between citizens and their ability to understand what the law says. There is no need to do it either. When we have amending or consolidating legislation, what we should be doing is taking section 15 of the 1987 Act, repealing it and completely restating it in its totality in the amending Act. That way it is all there for everybody to see and everybody can be clear on what is involved. With air pollution, there is not a huge amount of change in the legislation in that over the number of years, but if we look at things like taxation Acts finance Acts, social welfare Acts, road traffic Acts, there have been multiple amending pieces of legislation. This means that if a person wants to look up what the law says in a particular area, it is absolutely illegible. I am a lawyer. I read legislation, and I have been doing this for a while. This is difficult for me to penetrate. If it is difficult for me, it will be even more difficult for people who are not doing this all the time. It is incumbent on the House to say that we want to pass legislation that people can access. When they cannot, it is a waste of everybody's time. Worse than that, it is isolating ordinary citizens from an ability to see what we are doing. That said, I have gone through the Bill and I welcome the provisions it contains. Air pollution is hugely important. It is the biggest environmental risk to human health, certainly in Europe. The number of unnecessary deaths that result from environmental and air pollution is enormous. This is hidden because people's actual cause of death is often not ascribed to air pollution. However, we know there is a growth in rates of asthma, particularly in kids. We know that there has been a growth in numbers of respiratory conditions. We know from statistics that there is a growth in deaths as a result of poor air quality and air pollution. It is appropriate that we should be doing whatever we can to address that. That is why I welcome, for example, the reform of section 4 from the 1987 Act to expand the definition, for example, of "air pollution" to make it clear that it covers myriad things that were not necessarily even envisaged when the legislation was passed in 1987. Such is the vintage of that particular legislation, it predates many of the things that are causing air pollution now. Deputy Ahern mentioned data centres. I do not know if this problem is necessarily a justification for a moratorium on data centres. I understand where he is coming from in terms of a policy perspective, but I think there are much more proximate issues that are addressed in this that are very important. In particular, the enforcement measures in this Bill are very helpful from the point of view of empowering the State to take action where needed. That is the most important thing in this Bill. The fact is that there are scenarios we are allowing to slip through the cracks now. We need to plug those cracks in order to ensure that air quality issues are not going undressed because of a lack of legislative footing to do so. The revision of the 1987 Act is most important in that regard. Putting in place the things that we need to do to stop all of those threats to all of us in terms of air pollution is hugely important, and in line with the 2023 clean air strategy for Ireland. Providing those updates is really important. However, I also agree with what has been said by other speakers in this debate about providing resources to implement clean air and not just providing the systems and structures to allow us to prosecute those who are causing problems in the context of air pollution. That is important, but if we really want to tackle this issue, there is a general environmental aspect that goes beyond air pollution. Water pollution is another issue, although I know it is not part of this Bill. If we are serious about addressing those issues, we must also be serious about resourcing the agencies that carry out enforcement at the local level. We must ensure that they can carry out their duties and that they have the resources to carry out investigations and to put in place the remedies that need to be put in place. We should also be looking at putting in place schemes or systems to allow those industries or systems that are likely to fall foul of the air pollution legislation to do the best they can or to do more to ensure that citizens are kept safe from bad air quality. That goes beyond what is in this amendment Bill but a Government policy decision needs to be made so that those industries that create air pollutants are incentivised to do what they need to do and to act responsibly even before they meet the thresholds that result in criminal or administrative liability. Those companies should be incentivised to do something more to ensure they are reducing air pollution from their industries. They should also be aided in putting in place systems that might reduce their absolute contribution to diminishing air quality. I think this was referred to as a carrot and a stick earlier in the debate. I absolutely support that idea. This Bill is more about the stick. That is fair enough because the stick has to be strong enough to bring prosecutions to bear, where appropriate. That is hugely important. I said that there are wider issues here and that air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to human health in Europe. However, there are greater environmental threats. Water quality is one. While it may not be specifically addressed by this Bill, the reality is that we benefit from a nitrates derogation in this country, which puts a greater obligation on us to ensure improved water quality. If we continue the way we are going, we are not going to do that. I recognise the need for that derogation but I also recognise the fact that there is much more we can do to improve water quality, whether in our inland waterways, in what is discharged into the sea or in the water around our coasts. That is also true of air pollution. There is always more we can do to ensure that we are reducing the number of toxins we are putting into the atmosphere and, perhaps more importantly, the number of toxins we are allowing industry to put into the air, whether as a byproduct of generating electricity or of generating other products. There are a range of issues that are already affecting human health. This Bill will go some way towards addressing those and ensuring that the 2023 clean air strategy can be implemented in a way that benefits the population. The modernisation of the recognition of the legal framework for enforcing air pollution standards is really important. That is what the Bill does. I know the reality is that most citizens will never read this legislation and that it will be dealt with by enforcement officers within State agencies and by people working in compliance within industries generating electricity or producing products. I know that but I still think this is an example of how we repeatedly pass legislation in this House that is not accessible to ordinary citizens. It should be possible for a citizen to read this legislation. In fairness, that is possible with the 1987 Act. For example, section 6 of that Act refers to "Industrial plant and existing industrial plant". You know what that means. Section 7 of this Act is about amending section 12A of the principal Act. I just do not think that means anything to people outside of the industry and those dealing with compliance and enforcement of the Act. In the scheme of things, would we not be much better off letting citizens know what the Bill and the Act actually do to make their air cleaner and safer to breathe? Would we not be better off bringing them into the conversation about what is happening rather than creating legislative and legal jargon that isolates them from the process? I support the Bill and what it does. It is very important to modernise the framework for air pollution regulation but there are better ways to draft it. However, I support the substance of the Bill and welcome the Bill as it continues its passage through the Houses.

Sentiment score: 0.13