Most of Ireland’s Local Authorities Strengthen Environmental Enforcement in 2025.
Ireland’s local authorities delivered a strong environmental enforcement performance in 2025, with 83% of assessments under the National Enforcement Priorities rated Strong or Excellent. The EPA’s latest performance report shows that environmental teams across the country carried out more than 252,000 inspections, responded to 85,500 complaints, took 23,550 enforcement actions and initiated 386 prosecutions during the year.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Galway City Council and South Dublin County Council achieved the required standard across every National Enforcement Priority. All 31 local authorities also met the required standard for tackling illegal waste. Despite the positive overall results, the EPA identified areas where enforcement must improve. Seventeen per cent of assessments fell below the required standard, while Leitrim County Council and Sligo County Council did not meet the required standard across several priority areas. Particular attention is now needed in relation to waste segregation, discharges to water and transport noise. The EPA has called on local authorities to maintain momentum, allocate sufficient resources and ensure that enforcement is consistent across the country.
Tipperary County Council. While Tipperary County Council recorded positive results across several environmental enforcement priorities in 2025, the EPA assessment indicates that improvement is needed in two important areas.
The council received yellow ratings for its performance under the Environmental Noise Directive and for discharge licences and Misconnections. These ratings indicate that the work carried out did not reach the required Strong or Excellent standard.
The Environmental Noise Directive requires local authorities to identify harmful transport-noise exposure, prepare action plans and demonstrate that appropriate measures are being implemented. Tipperary County Council should clarify what actions are planned, when they will be completed and how progress will be measured.
The rating for Discharge Licences and Misconnections is also a concern. Incorrect wastewater connections and poorly controlled discharges can result in pollution entering surface-water drains, rivers and streams. Stronger inspections, licence reviews, investigations and enforcement follow-up may be required to protect water quality.
Visual Confirmation:State of the Suir River setin the heart of Thurles today; left uncleared since the recent Liberty Music Festival, which was held on Saturday July 4th and Sunday 5th, 2026 last.
These findings do not suggest failure across the council’s entire environmental programme. They do, however, show that enforcement must be consistent across every priority area. Tipperary County Council should respond by publishing clear corrective actions, measurable targets and realistic timelines for improvement. The report also highlights targeted work carried out in Tipperary’s firewood sector. Eleven firewood producers were contacted and provided with information on their obligations under solid-fuel legislation, including EPA registration and certification requirements. Following this engagement, three producers registered with the EPA and six began working towards certification through the Wood Fuel Quality Assurance Scheme. Two newly identified producers remain subject to further follow-up.
The Tipperary initiative demonstrates how inspections, education and sustained engagement can improve compliance. It also shows that continued oversight is necessary to ensure firewood meets the required quality and moisture standards, protects air quality and supports responsible producers.
The EPA will continue to monitor local-authority performance and work with councils to improve environmental outcomes for communities throughout Ireland.
The Ribbon Men in Tipperary; Where They Came From, Where They Went And Why They Are Less Spoken About in Irish History.
The Ribbon Men were part of the wider movement known as Ribbonism, a Catholic secret-society tradition that grew in Ireland during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They did not begin in Tipperary alone. Their roots are usually traced to the Defender movement of the 1790s, especially in Ulster, where Catholic communities organised for protection in a time of sectarian tension and political unrest. Over time, Ribbonism spread beyond the north and became associated with rural grievances, tenant rights, resistance to tithes, opposition to evictions, and hostility towards landlords, agents, informers, and process servers. Historians describe Ribbonism as both a secret society and a form of community defence, though government officials often used the name loosely for many kinds of rural disorder.
In Tipperary, the Ribbon Men entered a county already well known for agrarian conflict. Long before them there had been Whiteboys, and later there were Rockites, Terry Alts, Caravats, Shanavests, and other local factions. Tipperary’s land system, poverty, insecurity of tenure, tithes, evictions, competition for farms, and resentment of middlemen created the conditions in which secret societies could take hold. From the 1760s onwards the county was heavily involved in these rural movements, under different names and with changing motives.
Their activities in Tipperary were usually not open political rebellion in the modern sense. They worked in secret and at night. They used oaths, passwords, threatening letters, armed visits to houses, raids for firearms, attacks on property, intimidation of tenants, latter who took land from evicted families, and warnings to employers or landlords. Some actions were violent and sometimes deadly. Others were intended to frighten rather than kill. A National Archives record from 1828, for example, refers to Ballingarry Glebe, (NR), near Borrisokane and the forwarding of new oaths sworn by entrants into the “Ribband System.” This is important because it places Ribbon organisation, not just vague agrarian unrest, in north Tipperary.
The evidence suggests that Ribbon and Ribbon-like activity was strongest in north and mid Tipperary. The Ormond districts, especially around Borrisokane and Nenagh, appear repeatedly in studies of threatening notices and rural intimidation. Daniel Grace’s study of threatening notices in pre-Famine Tipperary found that land was the dominant issue behind such threats, and that the northern baronies of Upper and Lower Ormond produced a particularly high concentration of notices. Other places connected with this wider pattern include Thurles, Roscrea and Ikerrin, Templemore, Borrisoleigh, Cashel, Golden, Bansha, Tipperary town, Killenaule, Mullinahone, Carrick-on-Suir, Cahir, and Clonmel. Some of these places were centres of actual incidents; others were police, court, or administrative centres where cases were reported, tried, or investigated.
Where did they go? In one sense, they did not simply go anywhere. Ribbonism changed shape. Some members emigrated, especially to Britain and America, bringing forms of Irish Catholic fraternal organisation with them. Scholarship on Ribbon societies shows that the tradition did not remain purely rural or purely Irish; it also appeared among Irish migrant communities in Britain and later influenced Catholic fraternal organisations such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians. In Ireland itself, the Ribbon Men faded as new movements took the stage. The Young Irelanders, the Fenians, the Land League, the Irish Parliamentary movement, and later revolutionary nationalism, latter which gave people different languages and structures for protest. The old secret agrarian oath-bound society became less central.
There are several reasons why the Ribbon Men are less spoken about today. First, they were secretive. They did not leave behind manifestos, membership lists, or proud public records in the way later political organisations did. Much of what we know comes from police reports, court records, hostile newspapers, informers, and government correspondence. These sources are useful, but they are also biased and often confused.
Second, the term “Ribbonman” was sometimes used too broadly. Officials could blame almost any unsolved agrarian crime on Ribbonism. This makes it difficult to separate genuine Ribbon organisation from Faction Fights, local feuds, Whiteboy activity, Rockite activity, or ordinary crime. Historians therefore handle the term carefully.
Third, their story is morally uncomfortable. They were not simply heroes or villains. They defended poor Catholic tenants in a harsh land system, but they also used intimidation and violence. That complexity does not fit easily into the cleaner patriotic story often told about later Irish nationalism.
Finally, Tipperary’s later history overshadowed them. The Famine, the Land War, the War of Independence, Soloheadbeg, and the Civil War became larger parts of public memory. Compared with those events, the Ribbon Men belong to a darker, earlier, more secretive world of oath-bound rural resistance.
Yet they matter. To understand Tipperary in the nineteenth century, we must remember not only the famous leaders and public movements, but also the hidden networks of ordinary people who acted from fear, anger, loyalty, and desperation. The Ribbon Men were part of that hidden history.
Ireland’s latest greenhouse gas figures bring a welcome headline: emissions fell again in 2025. But behind that progress lies a much harder truth. The country is still nowhere near the pace of change required to meet its legally binding climate targets, and the next few years are likely to be far more difficult than the last few.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s provisional figures show that Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 2.2% in 2025, equivalent to 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. It was the fourth year in a row that emissions fell. Reductions were recorded across all main sectors, with the biggest falls in energy industries, buildings, industry and transport.
That is encouraging. It shows that emissions can fall while Ireland’s economy and population continue to grow. It also suggests that policy, investment and cleaner technology are beginning to have an effect.
But the scale of the challenge remains stark. Ireland’s national climate law requires a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared with 2018 levels. By 2025, emissions had fallen by only 14.5% when land use, land-use change and forestry are included. The EPA has warned that emissions must now fall by more than 10% every year to 2030 if Ireland is to meet its national climate target.
That is the central difficulty. A 2.2% annual fall is progress, but it is not enough. Ireland is moving in the right direction, yet not nearly fast enough. The easier gains may also be running out. The energy sector has delivered major reductions, helped by renewable electricity, less fossil-fuel generation and changes in the power system. Emissions from power generation and large industrial companies fell by 5.5% in 2025, according to the EPA. But future reductions will increasingly depend on harder-to-change parts of daily life: how people travel, how homes are heated, how farms produce food, how industry uses energy, and how quickly infrastructure can be built.
Transport is one of the biggest warning signs. Emissions fell in 2025, helped by more biofuel use and rising electricity consumption in road transport. But transport still exceeded its sectoral ceiling. This points to a deeper problem: Ireland is making improvements, but car dependency, slow public transport delivery, rising travel demand and freight emissions continue to make transport one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise.
Industry faces similar pressure. Industrial emissions fell in 2025, but the sector still overshot its ceiling. Some reductions can come from fuel switching or lower fossil-fuel use, but long-term progress will require deeper changes in manufacturing, cement production, industrial heat and investment in cleaner processes. That will not be simple, cheap or quick.
Agriculture remains perhaps the most politically sensitive challenge. The 2025 fall in agricultural emissions was very small. Lower cattle numbers helped, but this was offset by increased fertiliser use and higher milk production. Agriculture is central to rural Ireland and the national economy, but it is also a major source of methane and nitrous oxide. Reducing these emissions at the speed required will involve difficult choices about land use, herd size, fertiliser, food production and farm incomes.
Buildings offer another mixed picture. Emissions fell in 2025, helped by a warmer winter and reduced fossil-fuel use. Residential emissions are now much lower than in previous decades. But warmer weather is not a climate policy. Lasting reductions will require faster retrofitting, more heat pumps, improved energy efficiency, skilled workers and financial supports that make upgrades realistic for households and businesses.
Ireland also faces a serious EU compliance challenge. Under the EU Effort Sharing Regulation, Ireland must reduce emissions in sectors such as agriculture, transport, buildings, waste and smaller industry by 42% by 2030compared with 2005. The EPA says Ireland is projected to miss that target, with a maximum projected reduction of 23% by 2030 even under a scenario with additional measures.
The cost of missing targets could be significant. Reuters reported that Ireland’s fiscal and climate watchdogs warned the State could face EU compliance costs ranging from €8 billion to €26 billion by 2030, if emissions-reduction plans are not delivered. That means failure would not simply be environmental. It could become a major financial burden on the public purse. There is a risk that one positive year creates a false sense of security. Falling emissions are welcome, but climate targets are not judged by headlines. They are judged by cumulative reductions, carbon budgets and legally binding limits. Ireland may be provisionally under its first carbon budget, but future budgets will be tighter and harder to meet.
The real test now is delivery. Targets have been set. Carbon budgets have been agreed. Sectoral ceilings have been created. The legal framework is in place. What Ireland needs next is faster implementation; more renewable power, stronger grids, cleaner transport, warmer homes, lower-emission farming, industrial investment and public policies that make low-carbon choices affordable and practical.
Ireland’s emissions are falling. That matters. But the road to 2030 is getting steeper, not easier.The 2025 figures should be welcomed, but they should not be mistaken for success. They are a reminder that progress has begun, and that the hardest work is still ahead.
There has been little change in water quality indicators in 2025. Overall water quality remains unsatisfactory in many areas.
Excess nutrients from agriculture and wastewater remain the greatest challenge to water quality improvements, with phosphorous and nitrate levels still too high in many of our waters.
Some areas show improvements which is promising, but these are being offset by declines elsewhere. The scale and pace of implementation of actions to protect and restore water quality needs to be increased.
The message could not be clearer, and it should be a wake-up call for every community living beside a river in Ireland, including those of us along the River Suir.
The EPA’s Water Quality in 2025: An Indicators Report shows that there has been little change in water quality indicators in 2025, with overall water quality still unsatisfactory in many areas. Nutrient levels remain too high in a large proportion of water bodies, and slightly more than half; 54% of rivers and lakes are in good or better biological quality. So the question must be asked locally: why is the River Suir still being neglected? For the past 14 years, we have heard promises, plans, meetings, schemes, visits and announcements, but the visible condition of parts of the Suir, particularly around Thurles, remains totally unacceptable.
River Suir, Thurles, Co. Tipperary. Pic: G. Willoughby.
On 25 May 2026, Tipp Mid West Radio reported that North Tipperary TD Mr Michael Lowry said he was submitting a funding application for works on the River Suir between Templemore and Ballycamas. That announcement is indeed welcome, but it also raises a very simple question: after so many years of concern about the condition of the Suir, why are we still at the stage of applications, announcements and proposed works?
We are also told that the Government has amended the Minor Works Scheme, that Tipperary County Council has been allocated €150,000 for river conveyance works, and that funding applications of up to €2 million may be made to cover remedial works. Mr Lowry has said he will work with Cllr Micheál Lowry to progress a plan for the River Suir, and Minister Kevin “Boxer” Moran is expected to visit Thurles to view the river’s condition. That is welcome, but it cannot become yet another photo opportunity, followed by another decade of delay.
The EPA is clear that excess nutrients from agriculture, wastewater and run-off remain the greatest challenge to improving water quality. It has also said that while some areas are improving, those gains are being offset by declines elsewhere, and that the scale and pace of action must increase.
LAWPRO is working across the wider River Suir catchment to reduce damaging discharges, while community groups and Rivers Trust initiatives are encouraging local people, landowners and stakeholders to get involved in protecting the Suir and its tributaries. That community involvement is important, but communities cannot do this alone.
The missing ingredient for the River Suir is not more talk, it is delivery.We need clear answers:
► What works will be carried out? ► When will they begin? ► Who is responsible for delivery? ► Has the funding application now been submitted? ► What section of the river will be prioritised first? ► How will pollution and damaging discharges be reduced? ► How will progress be measured and reported publicly?
River Suir, Thurles, Co. Tipperary. Pic: G. Willoughby.
The River Suir is one of this region’s greatest natural assets. It should not be treated as an afterthought. Clean water supports biodiversity, public health, recreation, tourism, farming, fishing and local pride.
After 14 years of discussion, the people of Thurles and the wider Suir catchment area deserve more than statements of concern. They deserve action, visible funded and accountable.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has today published its greenhouse gas emission projections for the period 2025-2055.
Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions could achieve a reduction of up to 25% by 2030, compared to a national target of 51%, with full implementation of a wide range of policies and plans across all sectors.
Ireland will be close to meeting the first carbon budget, but nearly all sectors are on track to exceed their sectoral emissions ceilings for the second carbon budget by 2030.
Ireland is projected to exceed its EU Effort Sharing Regulation target of 42% reduction by 2030. EPA projects a maximum reduction of 23%.
With less than four years left to 2030, there must be a strong focus on implementation of policies and measures to meet climate targets which will deliver wide-ranging benefits from environmental protection, supporting public health and wellbeing and reducing Ireland’s dependence on fossil fuels.
EPA analysis shows that Ireland’s planned climate policies and measures could deliver reductions of up to 25% of emissions by 2030, compared to 2018 levels. Assessment of the latest information provided by Governmental bodies and sector representatives indicates that the gap to target is widening in some sectors of the economy, while narrowing in others.
Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions are projected to be close to meeting the first Carbon Budget (2021-2025) of 295 Mt CO2eq. The second budget is projected to be exceeded by a significant margin of 53 to 82 Mt CO2eq.
Transport, Industry and the Buildings (Commercial and Public) sectors are projected to be the furthest from achieving their sectoral emission ceilings in 2030. Agriculture emissions are projected to reduce by up to 19%.
Dr Eimear Cotter, EPA Director General, said: “The EPA’s projections show that the current rate of delivery of the Climate Action Plan and associated policies could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030 – only half of the reductions needed. While greenhouse gas emissions are declining, European and national emission reduction targets are projected to be missed. There must be a renewed focus on delivering the actions to meet Ireland’s climate targets which will be a significant challenge given the short timeframe to 2030.”
Dr Cotter added: “Meeting these targets will deliver multiple benefits. These include reducing Ireland’s reliance on fossil fuels in electricity, transport and heating and strengthening national energy security and resilience. Achieving these emission reductions will also improve public health, provide green employment and protect our environment. Overall, these trends demonstrate that progress is achievable but accelerating delivery is critical. Renewable energy is now expected to provide nearly 60% of Ireland’s electricity by 2030. It is imperative given the increasing demand for electricity across several sectors, that renewables are delivered at the pace and scale required to meet this demand.”
Agriculture. Depending on the level of implementation of measures outlined in Government policies and plans, total emissions from the Agriculture sector will decrease between 4% and 19% over the period of 2018 to 2030. Changes in nitrogen fertiliser usage, switching to different fertilisers and lower anticipated livestock numbers contribute to projected emissions savings. A direct comparison of the Agriculture sector against its absolute Sectoral Emission Ceiling is no longer possible given recent scientific updates to baseline historical agriculture emissions.
Transport. Emissions from Transport are projected to reduce by up to 28% over the period 2018 to 2030, if the measures set out in plans and policies are implemented. These include at least 751,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2030, increased biofuel blend rates and measures to support more sustainable transport.
Residential Emissions. Emissions from fuel combustion for home and hot water heating are projected to decrease by up to 18% by 2030. Lower uptake of home energy improvement measures, including planned heat pump installation in existing dwellings, has lowered predictions for emissions savings by 2030.
Industry. Fuel combustion in manufacturing is the primary source of emissions in this sector; emissions from mineral, chemical and metal industries contribute the next largest portion. Emissions from this sector are projected to reduce by 12% over the period 2018 to 2030.
Energy. Continued rollout of renewable electricity generation to provide 52% – 59% of Ireland’s electricity by 2030 as well as increased importation of electricity from interconnectors, are contributing to reductions in Ireland’s emissions. However, delayed delivery of planned renewable energy projects such as offshore wind have lowered potential emissions savings by 2030.
Land use. Emissions from this sector are projected to increase between 4% to 72% over the period of 2018 to 2030 as Irish forestry reaches harvesting age, and shifts from being a carbon sink to a source of emissions. Planned policies and measures for the sector, such as increased afforestation, water table management on agricultural organic soils and peatland rehabilitation are projected to reduce the extent of the emissions increase.
Commenting, Dr Conor Quinlan, Programme Manager said: “The shortfall to our 2030 targets is narrowing in some sectors, for example emissions in the Transport sector are now projected to reduce by up to 28%. Encouragingly, projections for electric vehicle uptake has improved, reflecting growing confidence in the transition to cleaner transport. In contrast, the gap is widening in others such as the Residential sector which is projected now to reduce by up to 18%. It is imperative that ambition and action is maintained across all sectors if we are to meet our targets and realise the benefits of decarbonisation for our society.”
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