Dublin's noisiest and most polluted areas named as complaints figures released
Dublin 2 stands out as the city’s nosiest area, while Dublin 12 tops the list when it comes to air pollution, according to complaints statistics for 2025.
At a recent meeting of Dublin City Council ’s Climate Action and Urban Resilience SPC, Paul Rutherford from the Air Quality Monitoring and Noise Control Unit explained how these forms of pollution affect the capital. With a total of 891 noise complaints and 127 air pollution complaints across the city, Dubliners have had to deal with their share of disruption.
Dublin 2 topped the noise ranking, with 196 complaints. Dublin 1, with 162, and Dublin 3, with 160, completed an unsurprising podium.
Dublin 12, meanwhile, topped the list for air pollution, with 19 complaints. Dublin 3 was second with 18, while noisy Dublin 2 was third with 16.
However, areas like Dublin 15 and Dublin 20 seem to be on the quieter side, as they received zero noise complaints. No area was immune to air pollution, although Dublin 20 again comes out on top with the fewest complaints, at just five.
Mr Rutherford outlined the dangers of air pollution on the population and explained that a joint study by the Irish and British Heart Foundations in 2023 found poor air quality has led to thousands of premature deaths. This amounted to 2,600 annual premature deaths in Ireland - 1,700 in the Republic and 900 in Northern Ireland.
These findings contribute to Dublin’s commitment to becoming Ireland’s first city to sign a agree to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) air quality guideline values by 2030. This saw the leaders of the four municipal councils that make up Dublin sign up to the campaign, agreeing to work together to achieve the goal.
There were several initiatives in 2025 aimed at improving the air in Dublin with the Air Quality Unit and Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment collaborating to address the changes in legislation anticipated in Q1 2026. The new regulations will be in place when the Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) directive is enacted. Under the new directive an annual mean limit value of 20 µg/m3 for nitrogen dioxide (traffic pollution) must not be exceeded by 2030.
This means the Council must now write their roadmap for all this will be achieved. Extra funding has also been commissioned by the department to further monitor air quality.
Noise complaints also contribute to disruption across Dublin. The most common complaints related to noise from commercial locations, such as pubs, clubs, offices and restaurants. Construction sites and alarms were also a common complaint topic.
The below table is the breakdown by area of the number of noise and air complaints made in 2025 to the Air Quality Monitoring and Nose Control Unit up to 09/12/2025:
Number of Noise Complaints
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