Michael Collins TD: “EPA’s catastrophic failures on toxic waste and wastewater show an agency no longer fit for purpose”
Independent Ireland Leader Michael Collins TD: “EPA’s catastrophic failures on toxic waste and wastewater show an agency no longer fit for purpose”
Independent Ireland Leader Michael Collins TD has issued a searing criticism of the Environmental Protection Agency following revelations that hundreds of historic landfills remain unmanaged and hazardous, saying the findings expose “a catastrophic failure at the very core of Ireland’s environmental system.”
Deputy Collins said the detailed investigation published by The Journal — revealing more than 200 old landfill sites left in limbo for years, including locations where toxic waste is leaking into watercourses — shows an agency that has “turned a blind eye when it suits its agenda.”
“The EPA was established to protect the public, safeguard water quality and hold polluters to account,” Collins said. “Instead, this investigation shows an organisation that downplays serious risks, allows dangerous sites to fester for decades and delays the action that communities around the country desperately need. An agency that closes its eyes to toxic waste is not a regulator — it is an institution that has lost its purpose.”
Collins said it is “disgraceful” that, while Irish farmers are “vilified every other week” as the root of environmental problems, the EPA’s own failures — including long-term neglect of landfill contamination, repeated shortcomings in wastewater treatment plants, and ongoing breaches in urban and industrial discharge standards — receive far less scrutiny.
“We have towns and villages across Ireland where wastewater plants are failing year after year, raw sewage is still being released into rivers and coastal waters, and toxic historic landfills are left unrepaired,” he said. “Yet the national conversation always seems to land on blaming farmers. This imbalance is not only unfair — it completely misrepresents where some of the most serious environmental risks actually lie.”
He said the evidence shows a pattern of weak enforcement, inconsistent oversight and a tolerance for delay that has left communities bearing the consequences.
“When toxic material is leaching into groundwater or when a wastewater system fails for the tenth year in a row, somebody has to answer for that,” Collins said. “But instead of decisive intervention, what we see is bureaucracy, excuses and inaction. This is environmental mismanagement of the highest order.”
Collins said Ireland now needs full transparency on every historic landfill, immediate clarity on the highest-risk contamination sites and a complete overhaul of how environmental enforcement is monitored and reported. He added that the public is entitled to straightforward answers, not evasive technical language or vague assurances.
“The failure exposed here is too serious, too long-standing and too dangerous to ignore,” he said. “Ireland cannot continue to rely on an environmental watchdog that looks away from toxic waste, overlooks persistent wastewater failures, and focuses its energy on lecturing farmers instead of fixing a broken system. The EPA, in its current form, is not fit for purpose. That must change.”
ENDS
