Seven Sites identified as National Priorities for enforcement by the EPA in Q3 2024

Date released: November 12, 2024

  • Seven Sites were identified as National Priority Sites in Q3 2024; three were from the Food & Drink Sector, two from the Intensive Agriculture Sector, one from the Waste Sector and one from the Anaerobic Digestion Sector.
  • The most common issues identified at these sites were non-compliant discharges to water and facility management.
  • A site’s presence on the National Priority Sites List indicates a poor level of licence compliance.

12 November 2024: Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publishes its National Priority Sites list for quarter three 2024. The National Priority Sites (NPS) System is a system of performance-based indicators to rank industrial and waste licensed sites in order of priority for enforcement. This allows the EPA to target its enforcement effort at the licensed operators with the poorest environmental performance.

Commenting on the publication, Dr. Tom Ryan, Director, EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement said:

"Our enforcement activities are risk based and we prioritise sites that are not complying with their licence. As noted in the EPA’s recent State of the Environment Report, a disproportionate number of sites on the National Priority Sites list have been from the dairy processing and waste sectors. This trend continued in Quarter 3 2024. The seven sites on the current list will be the subject of targeted enforcement action to ensure that the environmental issues are addressed, and compliance is restored.

Pamela McDonnell, Programme Manager of the EPA’s Industrial Licence Enforcement Programme said:

"Three of the sites on the National Priority Sites List, North Cork Co-Op Creameries Limited, Tipperary Co-operative Creamery Limited, and Aurivo Consumer Foods Limited, are milk processing sites. Each of these has featured on the National Priority Sites List previously. Milk and milk effluent pose a significant risk to local streams and rivers if it is not carefully managed. The dairy sector must prioritise investment in environmental controls to prevent the discharge of polluting material. This remains a priority issue for the EPA”.

Other sites on the National Priority Sites list also pose a risk to water quality.

  • The waste sites on the list include a non-hazardous waste transfer station and an anaerobic digestion facility.  Both sites failed to provide sufficient infrastructure to protect groundwater and surface water.
  • Similarly, at the two intensive agriculture sites on the list, poor management of waste and storm water increased the risk of contaminated discharges.

The list of National Priority Sites for Q3 2024 is in Table 1 below:

Licensee Sector Issue
A Pig Farmer, Co. Longford Intensive Agriculture Discharges to water, waste management & facility management
Aurivo Consumer Foods Limited, Co. Donegal Food & Drink Discharges to water
CRM Pigs Limited, Co. Cavan Intensive Agriculture Discharges to water, waste management & facility management
North Cork Co-Op Creameries Limited, Co. Cork Food & Drink Discharges to waste & air emissions
Starrus Eco Holdings Limited, Waterford City Non-Hazardous Waste Transfer Stations Discharges to water & facility management
Timoleague Agri Gen Limited, Co. Cork Anaerobic Digestion Infrastructure & facility management
Tipperary Co-Operative Creamery Limited, Co. Tipperary Food & Drink Discharges to water & infrastructure

Further information: Emily Williamson, EPA Media Relations Office 053-9170770 (24 hours) or media@epa.ie

Notes to Editor: The National Priority Sites (NPS) System is a system of performance-based indicators to rank industrial and waste licensed sites in order of priority for enforcement. The system was launched by the EPA in July 2017 to drive further environmental compliance at industrial and waste licensed facilities.

Licensed facilities are identified as National Priority Sites for enforcement using the NPS system developed by the EPA. Data for the previous six months is assessed and scores are assigned under four key indicators of environmental performance and licence compliance i.e. Complaints, Incidents, Non-compliances and Compliance investigations.

Higher scores indicate poorer compliance at a licensed site. Sites which exceed a certain threshold become a National Priority Site. This allows the EPA to target its enforcement effort at the licensed operators with the poorest environmental performance. The EPA updates the National Priority Sites list on a quarterly basis.

Further details of the National Priority Sites scoring system and the list of sites can be found here. Enforcement and compliance information for all licensed sites can be found on the EPA’s Licence and Enforcement Access Portal (LEAP Online). In addition we publish quarterly updates on the enforcement activities of the EPA.

Complaints about licensed sites can be made on-line at www.epa.ie or by contacting the EPA at 053-9160600.