Ban on fires and removing chimneys from homes ‘not extreme’

Ireland was above World Health Organization air quality guidelines for particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, and ozone at 52 monitoring sites across the country last year, according to the most recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency. File Picture

Banning fire burning at home and preventing and removing chimneys from homes may seem radical, but could make a huge difference in the overall health of the nation.

That is according to one of Ireland's foremost experts on air quality, professor emeritus of chemistry at UCC John Sodeau, who likened the concept to the smoking ban of 2004 that seemed unlikely to catch the public imagination at the time, but subsequently became a major public health success.