The good, the dirty and the abysmal

With terms used such as 'grossly polluted' and news that Laois is the only county with a playground for one in every thousand children, Hilary Curley finds Ireland's first performance table for local government grim reading

Meath is the dirtiest county, almost all of the waste generated in Mayo goes to landfill, Westmeath is the hardest place to get planning permission for a house and only two per cent of the roads in Kerry were re-surfaced last year.

All of the county and city councils measured their performance in 2004 across 42 agreed indicators such as waste management, housing, recreational services, water and planning. These ratings were compiled into a performance table for the first time as part of an ongoing programme to reform local government and deliver value for money.

Galway city recycles almost half its waste, followed closely by Waterford. Twenty-three out of the 34 local authorities recycle less than one fifth of their waste with the rest going to landfill.

Meath is ranked as the county that is "most significantly" and "grossly polluted" with litter. Cavan, Waterford City and Co Monaghan maintain they are litter free or only slightly polluted. A total of 46,708 complaints were made nationwide in 2004 about the environment and the majority of these were investigated. Out of these however, only 7,200 enforcement procedures were taken.

The provision of playgrounds for children across all local authorities is abysmal. Laois is the only county that provides a playground for one in every 1,000 children. The others provide even less than this. The problem of providing insurance cover for children's playgrounds is one of the main reasons provision is so low.

Co Donegal seems to be the target for most housing developers and people looking to build once-off housing. It received the most planning applications last year for once-off houses (5, 265) and received the third highest number of planning applications for housing developments (defined as two houses or more). The local authority approved 82 per cent of once-off housing applications and 75 per cent of housing development applications. A significant number of these decisions were overturned however, approximately 45 per cent, on appeal to An Bord Pleanála.

While the roads statistic looks very poor with less than 10 per cent of roads around the country being maintained and re-surfaced, it is explained by the fact that the figure does not include work done on road construction or road strengthening. This is one of the reasons offered for the poor performance of local authorities under this measurement.