{"id":152244,"date":"2025-10-29T22:36:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/152244\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T22:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:36:18","slug":"clare-council-ranked-as-one-of-the-worst-local-authorities-for-environmental-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/152244\/","title":{"rendered":"Clare Council ranked as one of the worst local authorities for environmental protection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Clare County Council, Ennis\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/584cc3b1-bd49-48c0-9b35-e1d3a387a655.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Clare County Council, Ennis<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Clare County Council has been ranked as one of the worst performing local authorities in Ireland regarding enforcing environmental protection legislation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a new report which shows that Clare\u2019s local authority met the required standard in just 11 of the 19 National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs) in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">This assessment is based on the EPA\u2019s Local Authority Performance Framework where performance is measured and reported against NEPs focused on improving environmental compliance and achieving positive outcomes for waste, water, air and noise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Clare County Council was deemed the fourth lowest performing local authority in 2024, with Sligo, Galway City and Leitrim the only local authorities marked lower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Clare\u2019s Council was deemed \u2018strong\u2019 or \u2018excellent\u2019 in only 11 of the 19 areas in which it was assessed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The environmental watchdog claimed that Clare\u2019s performance surrounding eight of the NEPs was \u2018moderate\u2019. Four of these NEPs fell under the \u2018Water Enforcement\u2019 category, three related to \u2018Air and Noise Enforcement\u2019 and the final one concerned \u2018Waste Enforcement\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Eight areas relating to \u2018Water Enforcement\u2019, \u2018Air and Noise Enforcement\u2019, \u2018Water Enforcement\u2019, and \u2018Government Processes\u2019 were ranked \u2018strong\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Meanwhile, the local authority\u2019s planning for the NEPs in terms of environmental resource planning, environmental outcomes, and review and reporting, was described as \u2018excellent\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cClare County Council met the required standard of a Strong or Excellent result in 11 of the 19 National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs) in 2024 and were one of the lowest performing local authorities in 2024,\u201d the EPA\u2019s report said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThis is a decline on performance in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cIn particular, there are four NEPs where performance did not meet the required standard in any year throughout the 3-year LAPF cycle: Household and Commercial Waste, Agriculture (Farm Yards), Environmental Noise Directive (ENDs) and Air &amp; Noise Control (including Planning).<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cLocal authorities are expected to meet the required standard in each of the NEPs and should prioritise and allocate appropriate resources to the relevant work areas to ensure effective delivery of the NEPs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clare County Council, Ennis Clare County Council has been ranked as one of the worst performing local authorities&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[18,440,19,17,20379,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-152244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-molly-cantwell","13":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115459849389284641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}