The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Ireland is being urged to improve its monitoring and advice during serious periods of air pollution.

The Green Party made the call after air quality in Dublin and all other major towns reached 'very poor' levels or '10 out of 10' on the Agency's monitoring site.

Green Party Spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe hit out at the EPA and said the latest report dates from 2014 and is three years out of date.

He said: "They need to improve their monitoring of air pollution, particularly in real-time, and ensure action is taken to tackle the causes when air pollution is at extremely high levels. More and better monitoring is required. For instance, there is no real-time data available for PM10 or PM2.5 particulates for Dublin's inner city. This is a serious gap in data that must be filled, as we know that air pollution is concentrated in areas with high traffic and concentrations of people. We need only look across the water to London to see how quality data can be made available in a timely manner.

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"The EPA must improve their monitoring and work with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of Energy, Communications and Natural Resources to reduce pollution. We now know that diesel cars and vans are more polluting than some manufacturers claimed, and we must get rid of incentives to purchase heavily polluting vehicles. Minister Ross should also give local authorities the power to limit heavily polluting vehicles from our city centres, particularly on days when there are high levels of air pollution. It is time to consider banning certain diesel vehicles from Dublin's inner city on still winter days that concentrate pollution. We must also ensure that smoky coal is no longer allowed into Ireland"

(CD)