Report of the Local Government Efficiency Review Group

1.7 Compliance Requirements on Local Authorities
1.7.1 Financial activities of local authorities are heavily influenced by
mandatory compliance requirements particularly in environmental
and health & safety areas, and more generally in other fields of
activity. These requirements result in significant non-discretionary
expenditure that local authorities effectively have to undertake. In
these cases, local authorities are statutorily bound or obliged by
national government or EU policy to incur these costs. In many
cases, non-compliance could result in fines for the Irish government
or the local authority, and in some cases criminal prosecution of staff
involved. Local authorities are also statutorily bound by other
legislative provisions, such as the requirements of the Official
Languages Act.
1.7.2 In the field of water services, specific regulations and statutory
instruments exist in several areas, such as drinking water, urban
waste water treatment, surface and groundwater, bathing water, and
waste water authorisation. In a typical authority, the capital costs of
water/ waste water plants for new and existing compliance
requirements totals €60 million. In terms of waste management,
recent legislative initiatives include regulations on different waste
streams such as sewage sludge, mining waste, legacy waste
disposal sites, tyres, electrical and electronic waste, packaging, food
waste, batteries and end-of-life vehicles, as well as legislation
governing the operation of waste management facilities such as
landfill sites and waste to energy facilities. Health and safety
requirements increasingly place a heavy financial burden on the
sector, having regard to the dispersed and diverse range of local
authority operations, and it can be expected that this will be an area
of significant continuing cost growth for the future.
1.7.3 Legislation in these fields typically implies a series of costs involving
local authority capital and current expenditure in areas such as the
following:
• New capital works in water and waste water services;
• Significantly increased operating and maintenance costs due to
more stringent standards;
• Monitoring obligations to ensure standards are being met
(monitoring functions have become more complex and the
frequency of analysis has increased, with protocols being
developed in certain areas);
• Regular sampling and testing (especially in the case of water
services);
• Improvement and remedial works that are required (for example
in terms of water conservation);
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