Complaints about odours associated with industry have almost doubled, with almost 1,500 complaints during 1998, according to the latest Environmental Protection Agency report on companies it monitors.
The annual report issued yesterday on integrated pollution control licensing highlights the "poor compliance record" of the livestock rendering industry, though more recent monitoring indicates some improvement. A total of 328 companies were subjected to strict licensing on their air emissions and discharges into water during 1998.
According to Dr Gerry Byrne, EPA programme manager for licensing and control, people in the past were more accepting of bad odours. The high number of complaints may also be due to increased urbanisation, people living nearer factories and intensification of the livestock slaughtering and rendering sector.
More stringent EU regulations mean high risk material, known as SRM, has to be treated to higher temperatures and this causes more odour problems.
Some 78 per cent of complaints received by the EPA related to odour; 13 per cent were about noise, while the remainder included water and air complaints.
EPA's director of licensing and control, Mr Iain MacLean, said it should be noted that in the case of more than 60 per cent of licensed facilities there were no complaints. "In contrast, three-quarters of the complaints were in relation to just 11 facilities."
The largest number of complaints in 1998 (as in 1997) concerned the rendering industry, followed by the fibreboard, slaughtering and pharmaceutical industries - Masonite fibreboard plant in Co Leitrim accounted for 363 complaints.
The agency brought seven prosecutions of which six were successful. The companies convicted were the Liffey Meats plant in Cavan, which had fines plus costs of £5,031 awarded against them; Monaghan Poultry Products Ltd (fines and costs, £6,900), Irish Refining PLC in Cork (£9,615), Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) in Nenagh, Co Tipperary (£96,170), MMF in Killorglin, Co Kerry (£6,667) and Masonite Ireland, Co Leitrim.
The EPA is part of an EU net work of environmental enforcement authorities known as IMPEL. In 1998, it evaluated the agency's licensing and enforcement procedures in detail and concluded they were "systematic, well-guided and ambitious".
