Air Pollution (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-28 ============================================================ Timmy Dooley (FF), Clare I thank the Senators for their contributions. Without a doubt, I understand the spirit of what they are trying to achieve. They are trying to remove a level of uncertainty from people who have concerns that have built up based on press releases and announcements that have been made through the decades. Generally, when it comes to drafting legislation, it prescribes what it intends to do. It never goes into what it does not intend to do. What Senator O'Reilly is asking me to do is to have the legislation set out what it is not doing. Of course, that would be a stretch. I will restate again with absolute clarity and certainty what the Bill sets out to do. It is about targeting the production, transportation, and sale and supply of materials that have a negative impact on the environment and, more particularly, the bronchial health of citizens. I can reiterate that again, and the Senators know the figures already. It is about improving air quality. We are targeting it at the production, transportation, and sale and supply, not at the end user. The end user is not referenced in any way in this amending legislation, nor is how the end user ultimately gets material that they, within the broader guidelines, wish to heat their home with. Many of the people I represent would be in that bracket. They are not included. It is not envisaged that the legislation would have any penalties for them whatsoever. Senator Kyne talked about the different methods of procurement they may have. That is their prerogative. The penalties and the capacities we are giving to the local authority to issue fixed penalties relate to those that would produce, those that would transport, or those that would otherwise have arrangements for sale and supply. That is all. Homeowners, regardless of age, financial circumstances or whether they are using the fuel for the comfort of a burning fire, to heat their homes or whatever, are not envisaged, included or referenced. What Senator O'Reilly is seeking to remove is a provision in the primary Act going back to 1987 that gives powers to the Minister to act in certain circumstances. However, it is not proposed for the regulations, and it is not in any way envisaged or provided for in the circumstances the Senators talked about, that a homeowner or householder would be in any way impacted. I understand where the Senator is coming from. I have spent a fair bit of time around these Houses and have seen different debates about who could or could not cut turf, burn timber, etc. We have got to a point from a legislative perspective where we can look at the proportionality of our response. It would of course be disproportionate to effectively ban the use of solid fuels in homes at a time when that is reducing anyway. People are benefiting more from the State supports for insulation. Since the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has had a new programme assisting people to make their homes more energy efficient by providing significant grants for windows and doors. There are already significant grants from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, to upgrade people's homes. We could get lost in some of these debates arguing over the head of a pin, but what we are saying is that this will have a meaningful impact on the lives and livelihoods of many people. It will target those who have been slow to desist from their practices, but they are at the commercial level. It is not the end user. We are ensuring that householders will only have ethical, as it were, materials in terms of supply. We need to emphasise why we are doing it while also recognising that there is a struggle. I know one of the amendments excluded related to supports for people who were struggling. Senator Andrews well knows the impact on people's homes and on people who are in fuel poverty. We have brought through significant measures in the social welfare code to address that. In tandem with that, we are investing in upgrading homes to a standard and supporting the people who are the least well off and who cannot afford to do shallow or deep retrofits. In many cases, we are providing them with an entire retrofit. We have put some funding into that and will put in more. Overall, this is part of a co-ordinated campaign about improving air quality and saving people's lives while also recognising that we need to assist people in their domestic residence and in making their homes more airtight and fuel efficient. That is the assistance we are providing to them while in no way putting any legislative measure in place that would seek to penalise them for the use of fossil fuels. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-28