Ennis falling from Ireland’s cleanest town to its twenty second has been described as “unacceptable”.

In the space of one year, Ennis went from being Ireland’s cleanest town to its twenty second. This came following the final Irish Business Against Littter (IBAL) survey of 2018. An Taisce, who carried out the survey, commented in its Ennis report: “A small number of littered sites was enough to take Ennis down the rankings in 2018. By far the most heavily littered was Ennis Train and Bus Station as well as scattered litter there were areas of heavy accumulations, especially where the buses reverse to park. Some of the top ranking sites included Ennis Tourist Office & Franciscan Church, Roselevan Shopping Centre, O’Connell Street and Market Square / Market Place / Lower Market Street – these areas were not just good with regard to litter but also well presented and maintained.”

Cllr Johnny Flynn at Monday’s meeting of the Ennis Municipal District (EMD) asked that both Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann be contacted in light of the IBAL report. “We need to write again to the people of the train and bus station, falling from first to twenty second place is unacceptable”.

Fine Gael’s Mary Howard who is also a member of the Ennis Tidy Towns committee also expressed her frustration. “I was hugely disappointed that our ghost station is letting us down, Bus Éireann & Iarnoid Éireann in Ennis is run by machines, it’s a joke they are making plenty money out of the bus and train station. It is a very unsafe place at nightime”. She said nobody cleared the snow there last Spring which resulted in public transport users falling on the premises.

“As opposed to writing to them, they should come in here. They came into here before and made many promises, they delivered on none. I was on the radio with Barry Kenny before, he spoke wonderfully for 5 or 6 minutes but has done nothing since”, Cllr Howard added. Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy stated, “My input is to seek a response from Leonore (O’Neill) on the IBAL report”.

Council official, Leonore O’Neill confirmed the EMD will be “engaging with representatives from Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann”. “I did take a site visit following the publication of results, the day I was there the area had very minimal amounts of later, accumulations of litter where there and may have been in areas not for public access”.