‘From relegation to the Champions League’ — How Galway city jumped from bottom to top in green enforcement ranking
After sitting at the bottom of Ireland’s environmental enforcement league table last year, Galway City Council has surged to the top with a perfect score in the EPA’s latest assessment - and a surprise audit with new staff has been credited with helping to turn things around.
This July, Galway city ranked highest in meeting National Enforcement Priorities (NEP) in the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2025 annual report. It marks a stark improvement from 2024, when the city ranked last among Irish local authorities.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s NEP annual report assesses how local authorities perform in enforcing environmental standards across the country. The rating is based on a range of performance targets relating to air and noise quality, household and commercial waste, construction and demolition material, environmental inspections, and environmental recording and reporting, among other areas.
It was a surprise EPA audi, and an eager new city council enforcement team led by Paul Connolly, Senior Executive Engineer with Galway City Council, that proved a turning point for the city.
Mr Connolly had been on the job for three weeks that June in 2024 when he sat across from three EPA inspectors to review Galway’s shortcomings. Having come from the Roads Department in Galway County Council, Mr Connolly and his newly established enforcement team welcomed the expertise and recommendations provided by the EPA.
“They knew we were struggling, and that’s probably why we were audited,” Mr Connolly told the Irish Independent. “Audits are brilliant, because an audit is when you find out where you are.”
Paul Connolly, Senior Executive Engineer for Galway City Council
At the time of the audit, Galway City had ranked last in the country in 2024, achieving just seven of the 19 NEP targets alongside Leitrim. Two agricultural NEPs did not apply to Galway City.
The EPA spent what Mr Connolly described as a “tough full day” with council staff, and the discussions that followed formed the basis of a strategic plan for the city. The plan that would boost Galway to the top.
“It’s a duty for us as public servants to have that transparency. These people that do audits are there to make sure we’re performing for our customers, that the local people of Galway can be confident that we are performing the role that we’re supposed to be performing,” he said.
“We set up regular meetings and got help from the Waste Enforcement Regional Lead Authorities (WERLA). They’re like an umbrella organisation for all local authorities in the West and the North West.”
“They sent guys down here to help train our wardens up on areas they hadn’t done before, and we started to see improvements.”
One of those improvements was the introduction of a centralised complaints system, allowing all public reports relating to illegal dumping and other waste enforcement issues to be recorded and tracked in one place.
Previously, that information was spread across multiple databases and departments, making it difficult to monitor whether the council was effectively addressing recurring enforcement problems.
The results were evident within a year, with Galway City climbing from the bottom of the rankings to achieving 100pc of the targets in the most recent report.
“It was huge, we had an enormous amount of work put into it,” Mr Connolly said. “I looked through the last 10-12 years, no other local authority jumped that much. As we’d say in soccer terms, we jumped from relegation to the Champions League in one season.”
One of the Waste Enforcement Checkpoints carried out last year on an approach roads to the city in partnership with An Garda Siochana.
“It’s so rewarding as a manager of the section to see such progress. There was full buy-in from the team.”
“People forget that we live in Galway too. We use all these facilities with our own families and it’s hugely important that we have huge pride in it.”
“Now the challenge is to maintain that level and improve,” Mr Connolly said, “and we will really, really, really be endeavouring to stay there.”
A key factor in maintaining that performance will be the wider rollout of CCTV across the city, he said. Two cameras and accompanying audio alert systems have already been activated as part of a pilot programme ahead of a broader installation.
“This is going to be a game changer in a lot of ways where our prosecutions are going to go through the roof because it’s going to help us improve.”
The enforcement team is now focused on maintaining its perfect record in future EPA reports, but Mr Connolly said they “can’t sit on our laurels” as NEP targets continue to evolve in response to national and global environmental priorities.
As 2030 approaches and Ireland faces increasing pressure to meet European climate targets, he expects the standards and priorities to continue changing.
For now, however, Mr Connolly is celebrating the achievement with his team while looking ahead to the next challenge.