Offaly one of worst counties in the country for tackling environmental issues

OFFALY was one of the worst performing local authorities in the country in relation to environmental protection measures and failed in relation to its own governance processes in the areas of waste, water, air and noise pollution.

The figures were revealed in the latest report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Since 2006, all local authorities have developed annual enforcement plans (NEPs) to improve the organisation and effectiveness of environmental inspections and enforcement.

Offaly was one of nine local authorities that did not achieve the required standard in more than 30% of their NEPs. The EPA says that in general, the lower performing local authorities deployed the least resources.

The Director of Services for Offaly County Council Tom Shanahan has said: ''During the period of this plan (2021) a staff resource deficit was experienced and combined with the impacts of COVID-19, Offaly County Council, along with other County Councils, did not achieve ‘strong’ or ‘excellent’ standard. Staff working in these areas continued to perform well within these confined parameters and I want to thank them for their work to-date. ''

According to the EPA report Offaly failed to meet the required standard in each of the categories below

Waste Enforcement - this includes illegal waste activity, construction and demolition waste, end of life vehicles and metals, household and commercial waste.

Offaly local authority had moderate results regarding illegal waste activity and construction and demolition waste. It had only limited results dealing with household and commercial waste, end of life vehicles and metals.

The EPA recommends increased focus on activities including: construction sites, soil recovery facilities, waste hauliers, by-product notifications and suspected unauthorised sites.

It also advocates an increase in surveillance on authorised activities in the end-of-life vehicle, metal waste and commercial waste sectors. Another aim local authorities are advised to implement is to improve the detection of illegal waste activity by making greater use of local intelligence rather than solely investigating complaints.

Water - According to the report overall, water quality is in decline across Ireland and the level of enforcement activity is low, with 24% of local authority environmental staff assigned to water monitoring and enforcement in 2021.

Offaly was lagging behind and had only limited results in the areas of discharge licensing, private water supplies, septic tanks, and agriculture. It had moderate results in relation to water quality monitoring.

The EPA recommends preventing water pollution from agriculture by increasing the number of farm inspections in areas of greatest risk to water quality. It also advocated following up on issues identified during farm inspections. Monitoring all private water supplies and enforcing the drinking water standards where monitoring identifies non-compliances, in order to protect human health. In addition it recommended following up on older septic tank advisory notices issued to householders to fix septic tank systems that fail inspection.

Air and Noise Inspections – Offaly Local Authority failed to make the grade here too. It had only limited results in the areas of burning solid fuels, air and noise local issues, air and noise controls in planning assessments and moderate results in air monitoring and in its noise plan.

The EPA recommends targeting inspections of online and mobile fuel sellers and on non-compliant fuel products under the Solid Fuel Regulations. It also urged local authorities to use monitoring data to identify air pollution hotspots and prioritise areas for action and to identify unauthorised operators under the Solvents, Decorative Paints and Petroleum Vapour Regulations and take corrective action.

Complaints - Offaly Local Authority had limited results in relation to handling complaints. The EPA say that the ''processes and systems for handling and resolution of complaints are a key aspect of environmental governance, as complaints are the main source for detecting illegal activity. Significant resources are required to deal with complaints. 71% of local authorities achieved the required standard, but once again Offaly Local Authority languished at the bottom of the list.

Mr Tom Shanahan said the local authority welcomed the report, saying ''This is the first report under the revised Local Authority Performance Framework, which aims to better align performance scores to the delivery of environmental outcomes under National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs) which are categories under four themes including governance processes, waste, water, and air and noise.''

He continued: ''The objective of this new framework is that all local authorities should be performing at or above the strong level across all the NEPs by the end of the three-year cycle running from 2022 to 2024. Offaly County Council looks forward to progressing our RMCEI (Recommended Minimum Criteria for Environmental Inspections) criteria across these four themes with view to achieving a stronger level at the end of the review period.”