Dublin a dirty old town but Kilkenny comes clean

Kilkenny has emerged as one of the cleanest areas in Ireland along with Mallow, Clonmel and Ennis in a national survey that sees Dublin gaining the unenviable reputation as one of the most littered places in the country.

Dublin city centre came fourth in the latest Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey. Dublin's north inner city came second while Tallaght was seventh.

However, Ballymun was 11th in the survey, showing an improvement on previous years when it had been regarded as a litter blackspot.

Dundalk in Co Louth was the most littered location in the survey and deemed to be "seriously littered”.

According to the survey, "Dublin city centre has deteriorated from moderately littered to littered”.

However, it says that Ballymun has "made progress”.

e nationwide survey shows the majority of Ireland's towns are clean, but two-thirds of city centres are still littered.

e survey is highlighting cleanliness across the country as the peak summer tourist season gets under way.

Conor Horgan, of IBAL, said: "Clearly, tourism is a focus of this annual summer survey and unfortunately the major urban gateways to our towns and countryside –notably Dublin – are falling short of the mark and creating an underwhelming rst impression for visitors.

"As a high-cost destination, tourists to Ireland can expect better.

"It's a fact, too, that the great work being done in our towns is negated by litter in our cities.” investment to be considered in Budget 2024 and the National Development Plan review.

Maynooth ranked top out of 40 towns and cities for being "cleaner than European norms”.

SETU President Professor Veronica Campbell has warmly welcomed the news saying that this was a real vote of con dence in our newly established university and in our ambitions for the future.

“Veterinary medicine and pharmacy are prestigious courses in high demand and will attract some of the brightest and best students from the south east, from across the country and from around the world.

“A large team from across SETU were involved in making these applications, but I would particularly like to single out Prof. Peter McLoughlin, Dr David Dowling and Eleanor Kent for their foresight in building knowledge and capac- ity through the years, putting SETU in a position to be successful in a highly competitive process." e veterinary medicine application builds on SETU’s strengths in science and land sciences together with a 50-year history of collaborative provision with Teagasc, Kildalton Agricultural College. e pharmacy submission is supported by SETU’s extensive record of teaching and re- search in pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical science. Both applications for the new programmes were supported by numerous industry stakeholders in the region spanning the agri/food, and equine industries, pharma/ biopharma industries, veterinary and pharmacy practitioners, farming organisations, consultancy agencies and regional and national representatives.