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The environmental role of local authorities 

Local authorities (city and county councils) are responsible for delivering a broad range of services to the communities that they represent and serve.  Among their many functions, they play a key role in protecting the environment in Ireland.  

There are thirty-one local authorities in Ireland.  They are responsible for implementing over five-hundred environmental protection requirements in relation to water, waste and air that are detailed in over one-hundred pieces of legislation. 

Every year, their work includes: 

  • enforcing over 10,000 licences, permits and certificates 
  • carrying out approximately 227,000 inspections 
  • dealing with environmental complaints from the public
  • taking enforcement actions and prosecutions  

Role of the EPA  

The EPA provides support and coordination to the local authorities and also has a statutory role to supervise their environmental activities. 

Support and coordination 

We give a range of supports to local authorities to help them with their environmental protection responsibilities including: 

  • coordinating the activities of the Network for Ireland’s Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, NIECE. This is a network of organisations and individuals who are directly involved in the enforcement of environmental legislation, environmental engagement and promotion.
  • working with the local authorities to achieve and maintain high quality bathing waters. Our beaches.ie website provides information to the public on their local bathing waters.  
  • funding a national food waste prevention campaign, providing guidance and resources to help people to reduce their food waste.  To find out more, visit Stop Food Waste.   

Statutory oversight 

The EPA measures and reports on the environmental enforcement performance of local authorities using the Local Authority Environmental Enforcement Performance Framework

The EPA has a specific role, under Section 63 of the EPA Act, to supervise the performance by local authorities of their statutory duties to protect the environment. We provide a way to make a complaint about the performance of a local authority.

The EPA can review the statutory performance of local authorities by: 

  • carrying out audits to assess how well they are performing their statutory environmental protection functions. The EPA audit reports are available here.
  • Following these audits, we can instruct the local authorities to take actions to resolve highlighted issues. We can ask them to report their progress and to let us know when the issues have been resolved.

Make an environmental complaint 

The EPA facilitates the reporting of environmental complaints to local authorities through the National Environmental Complaints Line (NECL) and the See It/Say It App.   Find out more about this at: Make an environmental complaint.

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