There is an urgent need to improve the quality of air in Irish homes, particularly for those with asthma, the Asthma Society of Ireland (ASI) has said.

It was responding to new research published earlier this week, which revealed that the number of deaths caused by smoking in the home is on a par with the number of road-related deaths in this country.

The study, Indoor Air Pollution and Health, found that smoking in the home creates high levels of air pollution - up to 17 times higher than levels found outdoors.

With the average European spending 90% of their time indoors, the air that they breathe here can have a significant effect on their health and wellbeing.

According to the ASI, those most at risk from pollutants in the home include the hundreds of thousands of people with asthma. Around 470,000 people in Ireland have the condition, including one in every five children under the age of 14. Ireland has the fourth highest prevalence of the disease worldwide.

Meanwhile, Ireland's mortality rate from respiratory diseases in general is more than twice the EU average.

Commenting on the report, ASI chief executive, Sharon Cosgrove, insisted that Irish people have as much right to breathe clean air at home ‘as they do to drink clean water and eat safe food'.

"Pollutants in the home caused by smoking are damaging for everyone's health, but especially people with respiratory conditions like asthma. Breathing in polluted air worsens asthma symptoms, increases the risk of having an asthma attack and limits quality of life. There is an urgent need to improve air quality in the home to provide health benefits to asthma sufferers in Ireland, and indeed the population as a whole," she said.

The ASI is already a member of the Tobacco Control Stakeholder Network and has signed up to the Stamp Out Smoking 2030 Campaign. This is an international campaign which is calling on governments to commit to the banning of all commerce in tobacco by the year 2030.

The charity is also repeating its call for the implementation of a ban on smoky coal throughout the country. Earlier this month, Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, said that he sees such a ban coming into play within the next three years, however the ASI is calling for ‘speedy implementation of this ban'. (See more on the coal ban here.)

Sixty-two people died from asthma in 2011, however many of these deaths could have been prevented as asthma is a controllable disease. The ASI noted that asthma represents a major burden on the health service, with 20,000 people attending emergency departments (EDs) every year as a result and 5,000 hospital admissions annually.

"The economic burden of asthma is estimated to be €533 million per year. Adults who suffer from asthma miss an average of 12 days of work each year, while children miss an average of 10 school days each year. Asthma also has a severe impact on quality of life for the hundreds of thousands of Irish sufferers, the largest chronic disease group in the country," the ASI added.

For more information on asthma, see our Asthma Clinic here