Congratulations, Fermoy.

Fermoy has been named among the top ten cleanest towns in Ireland, coming in at a respectable number seven.

The latest Irish Business Against Litter survey, done in conjunction with An Taisce, found that Fermoy was one of only ten of the Irish towns surveyed that was cleaner than European norms.

Unfortunately, the news was not so sparkling elsewhere in Cork. Both Cork City Centre and Mahon – Cork City fell into the ‘Littered’ category, while Cork Northside was one of only three regions in the country that was classified as ‘Heavily Littered.’

The IBAL suggests that these parts of Cork are taking a step backwards: “Galvone in Limerick city improved significantly, rising 6 places in the rankings, but the urban areas of Ballymun, Tallaght and Cork Northside all fell back.

“Cork and Limerick City Centres, both littered, showed a deterioration on the previous survey, while Dublin City Centre fell to heavily littered. Galway City lost its clean status, leaving Waterford as the country’s only clean city.”

“Frankly, there are few positives to draw from this survey when it comes to our main cities,” says IBAL’s Conor Horgan. “Other than Limerick’s Galvone and Ballybeg in Waterford, the An Taisce reports make for grim reading. Covid is certainly a factor but it alone cannot explain a negative underlying trend of recent years in the cleanliness of our urban areas.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, PPE litter was found to be at record levels.