The Republic's waste management record will be high on the agenda when the EU Commissioner for the Environment, Ms Margot Wallström, visits Dublin at the end of this month.
Ms Wallström, who was prevented by illness from coming to Ireland to address the Forum on Nice and meet Government ministers last month, is expected to raise the State's environmental track record at meetings on January 24th and 25th.
Ms Wallström's visit comes as a number of the Republic's local authorities are facing criticism including court action from the EU because of their stewardship of the Republic's dumps.
In the past year the EU has raised complaints with the State in relation to local authority dumps in Wicklow, Galway, Laois, Limerick and two in Waterford.
The EU is also critical of local authority control of private dumps and has, it claims, found "evidence of uncontrolled" private waste operations being carried out at Greenore, Co Louth, at the Poolbeg Peninsula, Dublin, on wetlands in Co Waterford, at Ballymorris in Co Laois and at Cullinagh, Fermoy, in Co Cork.
Recent media exposures have also revealed problems with private dumps in Dublin, Wicklow and Galway.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is gradually bringing all local authority waste facilities within a licensing framework. It has also overseen the closure of a number of sub-standard tipheads such as the one at Longpavement in Limerick.
Despite this, the EU maintains that some local authority facilities continue to operate without a licence over 20 years after they were originally required to have one.
But the EU is also critical of the EPA, particularly because of its licensing of continuing disposal at Tramore tiphead in Co Waterford. This, the EU says, "gives serious cause for concern, as the site is next to an internationally renowned wetland and major seaside resort".
According to the environmental group Coastwatch, leachate from the local authority dump near the strand in Tramore has been leaking into the sea at high tides for more than a decade. Opened in 1939, the 12-hectare site is not lined and for decades there was no monitoring of what went into the facility.
The dump is located in an environmentally sensitive area about 100 metres north of Tramore strand, including a candidate Special Area of Conservation, a proposed Natural Heritage Area, and a Special Protection Area for Birds.
