The European Commission is coy about ranking countries according to their adherence to EU rules, but a spokeswoman for the Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, acknowledged yesterday that there was no hiding Ireland's poor environmental record.
"It is no secret that Ireland is not among the best pupils in the class, but they are not the very worst either. They are somewhere in the middle - towards the end," she said.
Yesterday's ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the latest in a succession of blows to Ireland's image in Europe as a "green island".
Yesterday's decision came as a result of a European Commission action accusing Ireland of failing to enforce rules on waste disposal agreed 30 years ago. The commission took action after investigating complaints from different parts of Ireland about unauthorised waste disposal.
"Illegal waste sites in several parts of the country - for example, Louth, Dublin, Wicklow, Waterford - were not being made the subject of effective enforcement action and clean-up. Where court action was taken against illegal operators, the penalties imposed were almost always very low compared to the potential illicit profits to be made. There were serious delays in licensing local authority landfills, with some landfills not being proposed for any licensing at all," the commission said.
Some of the illegal dumps cited by the commission had been in operation for decades without regulation. One, at Tramore, Co Waterford, had been in business since 1939.
The European Commission took the case to court after the Government failed to comply with "reasoned opinions" - or official warnings - in 1999 and 2001.
It argued that the sheer number of problems with waste disposal in Ireland meant that the Government was guilty of "general and persistent" flouting of EU rules.
The court upheld all of the commission's complaints against Ireland, and the Government must now report within three months on how it will comply with the judgment.
"Illegal sites in Louth, Wicklow, Waterford and elsewhere will need to be properly cleaned up. It must also become clear that there is a real economic deterrent to carrying out illegal waste activities," the commission said yesterday.
The European Commission acknowledges that Ireland has begun to take some positive steps to deal with the problems highlighted in yesterday's ruling, notably the creation two years ago of an Office of Environmental Enforcement aimed at overseeing and improving the performance of local authorities.
"The office has been working on ways to get Irish enforcement bodies to better co-operate and share knowledge and respond to public concerns. The commission welcomes the efforts of the office to create a coherent, structured approach to dealing with illegal waste activities and to formulating a complaint-handling system for the benefit of citizens concerned by waste enforcement," it said.
Mr Dimas's spokeswoman said it was essential that local authorities create a proper system for monitoring waste disposal if Ireland is not to face further trouble from Brussels.
"The idea is that people should be able to complain to their local authorities and get effective action. Then they won't have to complain to us," she said.
