COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 11, 2023

QUESTION NO. 4

QUESTION: Councillor M. Lynch

To ask the chief executive for a report on the recent EPA findings that South Dublin County Council was not one of the 10 local authorities that achieved the required standard in enforcement of the environmental regulations in 2022. Report to highlight how the council will meet the 2023 targets.

REPLY:

Since 2006, Local Authorities have developed enforcement plans to improve the organisation and effectiveness of environmental inspections and enforcement.

These plans arise from the European Parliament and Council Recommendation 2001/331/EC, on the recommended minimum criteria for environmental inspections in member states, known as “RMCEI”.

Within these plans Local Authorities prepare yearly enforcement plans to improve the effectiveness of environmental inspections and these are submitted to the EPA by the end of February annually.

The RMCEI draws from various internal and external stakeholders, namely Litter Section, Environmental Awareness Section, Waste Enforcement & Licensing Section, the HSE’s Environmental Health Officers and Dublin Fire Brigade.

The EPA recently introduced a new ‘Local Authority Performance Framework’ (LAPF) to assess local authority performance against National Enforcement Priorities (NEP’s).

The LAPF assessment is conducted under four themes namely governance, water, waste, and air/noise. The assessment is primarily based on information supplied annually by the Local Authority including its RMCEI Plan, RMCEI Data Returns and NEP Progress Reports.

For each of the three thematic areas waste, water and air/noise, there are five National Enforcement Priorities with key activities identified for local authorities. Each priority has an agreed objective and a specified outcome to be achieved over a three-year cycle, with the first cycle of the revised framework running from 2022-2024.

From the EPA’s assessment of South Dublin’s performance across 20 thematic areas, SDCC met the required standard of Excellent or Strong in 60% of the National Enforcement Priorities in 2022.  This was above the national average.

Local Authorities are expected to meet the required standard by the end of the 2022-2024 three year cycle and South Dublin County Council will meet this requirement.