Strong environmental enforcement performance by local authorities in 2025
Date released: July 21, 2026
- The majority of Ireland’s 31 local authorities demonstrated high performance in delivering the National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs), with 83% of assessments rated as Strong or Excellent
- Three local authorities - Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Galway City Council and South Dublin County Council - met the required standard across all NEPs.
- Two local authorities – Leitrim County Council and Sligo County Council – failed to meet the required standard across multiple NEPs.
- Local authorities need to maintain momentum and prioritise environmental enforcement focusing in particular on waste segregation, discharges to water and transport noise.
22 July 2026: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has today published its report on the environmental enforcement performance of local authorities in 2025. The report assesses performance against the National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs), which target the most significant environmental risks and compliance challenges across the country. The report shows strong overall performance by local authorities in delivering their environmental enforcement responsibilities, while identifying some areas requiring improvement.
During 2025, Ireland’s 31 local authorities employed 668 environmental staff, responsible for enforcing 10,700 licences, permits and certificates. They carried out more than 252,000 inspections, responded to 85,500 environmental complaints, took 23,550 enforcement actions, and initiated 386 prosecutions.
The EPA found that 83% of the National Enforcement Priority work carried out by local authorities met the required standard of strong or excellent, an increase of 4% compared to 2024. Three local authorities - Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Galway City Council and South Dublin County Council - met the required standard across all National Enforcement Priorities. In addition, all local authorities achieved the required standard for illegal waste enforcement.
However, the report also identifies performance gaps, with 17% of National Enforcement Priority assessments falling below the required standard. Two local authorities - Leitrim County Council and Sligo County Council - failed to meet the required standard across multiple priority areas.
Commenting on the report, Dr. Tom Ryan, Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement, said:
“Local authorities play a vital role in protecting Ireland’s environment and communities and, in 2025, most local authorities demonstrated strong overall environmental enforcement performance. Improvements were evident across several key enforcement priorities with increased inspection and enforcement activity. However, some local authorities such as Leitrim and Sligo County Councils need to do much better.
Our report also identifies areas where stronger and more consistent enforcement is needed, particularly in relation to waste segregation, discharges to water and transport noise. Local authorities must address these shortcomings by prioritising and allocating appropriate resources to maintain the positive momentum and to ensure consistent and effective environmental protection across the country.”
The EPA will continue to monitor local authority performance and work with local authorities to improve environmental outcomes and ensure effective enforcement across all sectors.
Ray Cullinane, Programme Manager, EPA Office of Environmental Enforcement, said:
“The findings highlight the importance of targeting enforcement activity where it can achieve the greatest environmental benefit. It is particularly encouraging that all 31 local authorities met the required standard for illegal waste enforcement, demonstrating the impact of focused and coordinated action. Local authorities should now build on this success to ensure effective enforcement across all priority areas, which will deliver better environmental outcomes for communities across Ireland.”
The Local Authority Environmental Enforcement Performance Report 2025 is available on the EPA website.
Further information: Emily Williamson, EPA Media Relations Office 053-9170770 (24 hours) or media@epa.ie
Notes to Editor:
EPA’s Local Authority Performance Framework:
- The EPA has a supervisory role over local authorities and assesses their environmental inspection and enforcement performance under the EPA's Local Authority Performance Framework.
- There are 15 National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs) which focus on delivering positive environmental outcomes for air quality, water quality and waste management. The NEPs are shown in the table below.
| Theme | National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs) in 2025 |
|---|---|
| Waste |
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| Water |
|
| Air & Noise |
|
| Governance Processes |
|
* European Parliament and Council Recommendation 2001/331/EC on the Recommended Minimum Criteria for Environmental Inspections in member states, known as “RMCEI”.
- The report sets out results of the EPA’s assessment of the 15 NEPs for the 31 local authorities. Each NEP was scored according to a four-point scale; Excellent, Strong, Moderate or Limited. To achieve a Strong or Excellent score, local authorities must provide evidence of satisfactory risk-based selection of inspections and appropriate follow-up of issues, focused on improving compliance and environmental outcomes.
- Waste Enforcement:
Ireland’s waste generation is too high and there has been no significant progress to reach the mandatory recycling targets. Greater consistency in waste enforcement by local authorities is needed across non-compliant households and apartment complexes, to support waste segregation and use of the three-bin system.
- Water Enforcement:
Agriculture continues to have a significant impact on water quality, resulting in excess levels of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and sediment entering our waterways. In 2025, farm inspections were 66% higher, and farm enforcement actions were 68% higher than in 2024. Local authorities must sustain this increased level of farm-inspection activity and should increase follow-up enforcement to drive compliance with the Good Agricultural Practice Regulations and reduce the impact on water quality. Local authorities must also prioritise the inspection and enforcement of trade and sewage effluent discharge licences to water, particularly those that are a significant pressure on receiving water quality.
- Air & Noise Enforcement:
Local authorities assigned a much lower level of resources to air and noise enforcement (9%) than waste enforcement (57%) and water enforcement (34%) in 2025. Ireland's air quality is generally good and currently complies with EU standards; however, with tighter air quality limits due to come into effect in 2030, additional measures will be required to safeguard air quality in towns and cities. Local authorities need to maintain the inspection campaign of solid fuel producers, retailers and distributors, to ensure only approved solid fuels are available for sale and to protect public health from harmful air pollutants.
- Many local authorities made little progress on delivering the measures in their Noise Action Plans (NAPs) in 2025. Greater action is needed to reduce exposure to transport noise and the impact on people’s health and wellbeing. Local authorities, in collaboration with transport infrastructure bodies, need to focus implementation of NAPs on the priority areas identified using strategic noise mapping.
- Peat Enforcement:
The unauthorised large scale extraction of peat continues to be a significant environmental issue for some local authorities. While large scale peat extraction is not a National Enforcement Priority, the EPA has identified 44 sites of interest in at least eight local authority areas - Longford, Westmeath, Roscommon, Sligo, Offaly, Kildare, Tipperary and Galway. Local authorities need to ensure that, where large peat extraction is taking place, it is properly authorised and approved under Planning legislation. The EPA published a report on Large Scale Illegal Peat Extraction in June 2025.