The holder of an EPA Licence is obliged to comply with the full suite of conditions in their Licence. These are designed to allow the operator to carry on their licensed activity without causing risk of harm to human health or the environment.
EPA inspectors continually track and assess each licensee’s compliance with their licence. Any breach of a licence condition is recorded by the EPA as a ‘non-compliance’.
The detection of a non-compliance is often the first step in the escalation of enforcement action by the EPA. We may, depending on the nature and significance of the non-compliance, open a Compliance Investigation into the cause or, where we think it necessary, mount a prosecution against the licensee.
The chart below shows non-compliances recorded from Q1 to Q2 2026. Details of non-compliances are also available on LEAP Online (public access to compliance and enforcement records).
Non-compliances at licensed sites from Q1 to Q2 2026
- 910 non-compliances were recorded across 276 licensed sites.
- Breaches of emission limit values accounted for 25% of all cases.
- 9% of the non-compliances related to failures by the licensee to report incidents that had occurred at their sites.
Five sectors accounted for 69% of all non-compliances recorded from Q1 to Q2 2026:
- Non-Hazardous Waste Transfer Stations - 20%
- Food & Drink - 18%
- Landfill -16%
- Surface Coating - 8%
- Chemical - 7%