IRELAND'S dirtiest towns and cities have been revealed in a new litter survey.
The Irish Business Against Litter conducted a study of 40 areas of the country, measuring how clean the streets were of litter and other refuse.
They were looking to determine whether or not Ireland's streets have improved or gotten worse since the pandemic, which has generally had most of us cooped up in our homes for the last year-and-a-half.
Dublin's North Inner City was deemed the country's most litter-infested neighbourhood, followed closely by Limerick City South and Drogheda, which were all deemed 'heavily littered' areas.
Dublin's North Inner City was described as a 'litter blackspot' in the report.
At the other end of the spectrum, Portlaoise (Co. Laois) emerged as cleanest of the areas surveyed, with Leixlip (Co. Kildare), Ennis (Co. Clare), Arklow (Co. Wicklow), Dun Laoghaire (Co. Dublin), Kilkenny (Co. Kilkenny), Fermoy (Co. Cork) and Naas (Co. Kildare) all deemed to have streets 'cleaner than European norms'.
Latest IBAL litter survey results: how is your town doing?https://t.co/j3vUGAqXc6#litterleague pic.twitter.com/3JQKw3Yiyg
— Irish Business Against Litter (@IrishLitter) October 17, 2021
Most towns have cleaned up over the past 12 months, according to the report, but litter in the nation’s main cities has worsened to levels not seen in ten years.
The number of areas deemed clean rose from 17 to 23. In all, 68% of towns showed an improvement on last year.
IBAL spokesperson Conor Horgan however said that some areas have seen an improvement.
"We’ve seen a very welcome improvement in Carlow, which was in the doldrums for a number of years. It’s now clean to European norms," he said.
"The same can be said of Longford, which again was second bottom half of our chart for a number of years - that has improved to a top ten position.
"And, in what was generally a pretty dire survey for city centres, Galway city centre has improved, and it is clean along with Waterford city centre."
See More: Cleanliness, Ireland, Litter, Survey
