An Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in UCC has said he wouldn't be surprised if some types of air pollution in Cork actually rose during the lockdowns.
This would be contrary to trends of falling air pollution across Europe during the same periods.
He was reacting to a study by the European Union's 'Copernicus' Atmosphere Monitoring Service, which examined the air quality of 47 major European cities between February and July 2020.
The EPA says there are an estimated 1,300 premature deaths in Ireland every year due to levels of fine particles in the air.
Speaking to RedFM News, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at UCC, John Sodeau said that the increase in people working from home, and Ireland's reliance on solid fuels like coal, timber and turf, means that more of these polluting fine particles were released into the air:
"They also measured fine particulate matter. Now there were no measurements in Cork, but there is an issue with Ireland being a bit separate from many of the other countries. Transport isn't quite as important for our pollution as burning solid fuel is and that gives us the particulate matter. So I would not have been surprised if, when people were staying at home, that, in say, Macroom, some parts of Cork City itself, if those particulate levels didn't go up because they were at home."
