MOT tests on diesel cars in Northern Ireland subject of High Court hearing

Friends of the Earth says the absence of a test is a breach of vehicle testing law

MOT tests on diesel cars in Northern Ireland subject of High Court hearing
Photo: Friends of the Earth NI/Twitter

The Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland has been taken to court for what the Friends of the Earth NI calls a “dangerous 17-year long air quality failing”.

With support from The Public Interest Litigation Support (PILS) Project, the environmental campaign charity claims that hundreds of thousands of diesel cars in Northern Ireland have never received a legally complaint exhaust emissions test at government-controlled MOT vehicle testing centres.

The tests were introduced in 2006 but were stopped after 12 weeks amid concerns about health and safety in the testing centres. They have never been re-introduced.

In 2018, a team working on a BBC investigation bought a second-hand diesel car and booked a test.

It said: “Our confirmation email and the NI Direct website both informed us that the MOT would involve a metered smoke test to check the car’s emissions. That was not true. 

“We secretly filmed throughout the test and there was no evidence of a metered smoke test.”

During the one-day High Court hearing, the legal team representing Friends of the Earth and PILS, argued that failing to fully test the emissions of diesel cars, the Department for Infrastructure has breached its duties under vehicle testing law, along with its duty to protect public health and wildlife habitats.

James Orr, Friends of the Earth NI director, said: “The consistent failure to test diesel emissions on cars by government controlled MOT centres, is a reckless act by a Department who are there to protect the air that we breathe.

“Human health and the health of our environment has been put at risk for the last 17 years by the Department for Infrastructure’s dereliction of duty. We are taking the government to court because we all have a right to breathe clean air.”

Tweeting after the hearing, The PILS Project said: “One day wasn’t quite enough to discuss all the critical issues in our case. So [Friends of the Earth NI, The PILS Project and the Northern Ireland commissioner for children and young people] will be back in court on 20 October 2023.”

Source: Friends of the Earth

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