Leitrim is the county with the lowest cost for cleaning up after illegal dumping

Leitrim has the lowest cost in the country when it comes to tidying up after illegal dumping, a new report published in the Farmer's Journal has shown.

Leitrim County Council spent €27,166 in clean- up costs, while it received €136,803.18 under the Anti-Dumping Initiative.

Meanwhile Kildare had the highest costs in the country with €535,877 spent clearing illegally dumped waste. The local authority received just €39,083 through the Government’s Anti-Dumping Initiative fund.

The report found that over €4m of taxpayers’ money was spent clearing rural Ireland of illegally dumped waste in 2025 with areas such as rural roads, beauty spots and forestry entrances targeted.

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The figure was obtained through a series of Freedom of Information requests, made by Irish Country Living, to all 25 local authorities outside Dublin.

Some authorities were unable to release the clean-up figures, as they are not yet determined in overall budgets, while others refused to extract illegal dumping clean-up costs from more general budgetary figures.

The report also noted thath the number of fines and prosecutions was just 263. 

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Government supports each local authority through an Anti-Dumping Initiative fund, set up in 2017 to identify high-risk or problem areas. The fund has provided over €23m in the past nine years, helping to remove over 26,400 tonnes of waste from the countryside.