The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent public body established under the Environmental Protection Agency Act, 1992. The other main instruments from which it derives its mandate are the Waste Management Act, 1996, and the Protection of the Environment Act, 2003. The EPA has a wide range of functions to protect the environment. Its primary activities include:

* Environmental licensing

* Enforcement of environmental law

* Environmental planning and guidance

* Monitoring and reporting on the environmental status- air, water, waste, noise, land and soil

* Environmental research

Management and Organisational Structure

The EPA is managed by a full time Executive Board consisting of a Director General and four Directors. Current members of the executive board are Mary Kelly, Director General, Padraic Larkin, Larry Stapleton, Dara Lynott and Laura Burke. Directors and staff of the EPA adhere to a Code of Business Conduct in undertaking their duties. An Advisory Committee, under the Chairmanship of the Director-General, meets several times a year to raise issues of concern and offer advice to the board. The EPA has organised its activities into five Offices, with each Office reporting to a Director. To view an organisational chart click here.

The EPA Strategic Framework charts the direction of the organisation going forward, outlining its strategy for achieving its far-reaching goals and reiterating the Agency's mission, vision and values.

The EPA's headquarters is located in Wexford and has regional offices/inspectorates in Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, Castlebar, Monaghan, Letterkenny, Athlone, Limerick, and Mallow.

EPA participation in GEMS in the context of air quality and health.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Ireland has a strong interest in the air quality and health aspects of the GEMS project. The EPA has recently published Ireland’s Environment 2004 report (EPA, 2004), which highlighted a number of environment and health areas. The EPA, through its National Environmental Research Centre of Excellence, is currently involved in the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) project, PROMOTE. The EPA role in this project is as a core user for proposed Air Quality and Climate Change products for which we will provide end-user feedback. Currently, we are focussing on the development of an air quality modelling and forecasting capability for Ireland, which will assimilate satellite and in-situ monitoring data. This is to be carried out in collaboration with the RUI group at the University of Cologne. Over the next two to three years, we intend to carry out localisation and validation studies on the current operational model.

The development of this forecasting system is principally motivated by the requirements of EU and Irish air quality directives, which state that information should be provided to susceptible groups in the population on the onset and duration of air pollution events. Therefore, in conjunction with the development of a forecasting capability, we are carrying out the first major baseline air pollution exposure and health effects assessment for Ireland, together with the Harvard School of Public Health. Importantly, this study will take into account both indoor and outdoor pollution exposures. This will allow a realistic appraisal of the contribution of outdoor pollution to health effects and the development of an appropriate air quality index which empirically relates data from the national monitoring network to the needs of susceptible populations in Ireland.

Air pollution in general, and particulate matter/aerosol (PM) specifically, has been shown in epidemiological studies to be associated with decrements in pulmonary function and exacerbation of asthmatic and other respiratory and cardiac symptoms (Gielen et al., 1997; Peters et al., 1997; Romieu et al., 1996; Vedal et al., 1998; Delfino et al., 2004). However, one of the limitations of these studies is that detailed PM/aerosol compositional data are typically not available, thus hampering the ability to infer the relative importance of pollution components and sources in these effects. In addition, these studies often utilize only central monitoring site data, which do not necessarily accurately reflect personal exposures to air pollutants. There is also a lack of detailed information on indoor air pollution exposures. This work is designed to (1) determine the important sources of indoor and outdoor exposures to PM/ aerosol, its components, and gaseous co-pollutants in a cohort of sensitive individuals in Ireland; (2) determine the relative importance of different pollutants to indoor and outdoor exposures in this cohort; (3) determine the associations between indoor and outdoor pollutant exposures and indicators of health effects such as asthma exacerbation, and other respiratory or cardiac problems; and (4) determine the appropriate levels of outdoor air pollution at which health alerts might be issued to sensitive populations. This should provide a rational basis for the development of an appropriate air quality index, as well as an indication of the levels of outdoor air pollution at which warnings should be issued.

The GEMS PM/aerosol analyses i.e. estimates of the current, evolving, three dimensional distribution of PM/aerosol over Ireland will provide improved understanding of the temporal evolution of the outdoor aerosol fields. It is envisaged that these will be utilised in conjunction with national epidemiological data and studies in relation to diseases/symptoms, considered to be impacted by aerosol burden, in order to rank relative contributions to disease incidence. The GEMS analyses and forecasts of O3 and NO2 will be also used to assess the possible contributions of these gases to the incidence of linked diseases/symptoms. This will allow for assessment of the value of the GEMS forecasts of aerosol and reactive gases in the development of an alert system for susceptible individuals.

03-08-2005