EPA criticises low level of water quality inspections by councils

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has criticised the low level of inspections of water pollution carried out by local authorities, despite water quality in lakes and rivers declining.

In a report, published on Tuesday, the State’s environmental watchdog said when it came to inspections of water, air and noise pollution, many councils were not doing enough.

The watchdog said water quality was “in decline” across Ireland, with the level of inspections from council staff deemed “low”. Water quality was a focus of around a fifth of environmental inspections, with 42,000 inspections carried out last year.

The report said more than 1,000 water bodies, such as lakes and rivers, were “impacted negatively” by agriculture. Despite this the number of farm inspections by councils was 43 per cent below pre-Covid levels.

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The number of complaints about poor water quality made to local councils had increased by 14 per cent last year, the report said.

“Overall, the level of inspection and enforcement activity is low. This needs to increase along with improved co-ordination of resources in this area,” it said.

The EPA said nine local authorities were falling short in their inspections targeting pollution, with Offaly County Council scoring the lowest in an assessment by the regulator.

The other local authorities who ranked poorly were Mayo, Sligo, Wexford, Waterford, Tipperary, Laois, Roscommon and South Dublin County Council.

The watchdog said a “high portion of resources” in local authorities were directed to dealing with more than 81,000 complaints from the public last year, which most often related to litter and waste.

Last year 68 per cent of inspections focused on waste last year, while 24 per cent examined water quality. Less than one in ten inspections related to air or noise pollution, the report said.

The EPA said maintaining staffing levels was a “constant challenge” for councils, who faced a high turnover of employees.

Overall there had been a 14 per cent increase in the number of inspections carried out by local authorities last year, up to 205,000.

The environmental watchdog said “stronger enforcement” is needed by councils, which would require more resources and a higher priority being given to inspections.

Five councils were performing well, these were Kildare County Council, Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council, Leitrim County Council and Monaghan County Council.

More than half of councils scored well when it came to efforts to tackle illegal waste dumping, the report noted.

Inspections of how construction and demolition waste was disposed of was “limited”, with many councils only focusing on parts of “a very broad enforcement area,” the EPA said.

David Pollard, an EPA manager in environmental enforcement, said the results of the review of local councils was “quite mixed”.

“I don’t think we have any local authority that performed excellently across all, equally we did not see any local authority perform poorly across all,” he told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.

Mr Pollard said one issue was that the number of inspections was not translating into better environmental outcomes.

“So what we want to see is not just local authorities carrying out inspections, but where issues are found that they follow through and that the environment improves as a result of that,” he said.