New figures show a sharp decline in fines for littering by Dublin City Council, with one councillor saying that measures to clean up the city are "failing entirely."

Information obtained by Newstalk, under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that just 68 littering fines have been issued until the end of July 2025. In 2023, the number issued was 1,080. If the current trend holds, that would represent an 89% drop in fines over that period. 

The figures include a 77% drop in central Dublin, despite the north inner city area being named the most littered area in Ireland by Irish Business Against Litter last month. 

Dublin litter

Mannix Flynn, Independent Councillor for Dublin Bay South spoke about this issue on Newstalk Breakfast this morning. 

Councillor Flynn stressed that the fines were not declining because of a cleaner environment:  “It’s not because we’ve stopped issuing fines because the situation has improved, as a matter of fact, the situation has gotten catastrophically worse”. 

“Most recently, we’ve deployed cameras at certain hotspots within the city, particularly the north inner city, in order to detect wholesale dumping for prosecution.” 

“So we’ve moved to the situation where instead of preventing littering, we seem to have given up.” 

Mr. Flynn believes that litter wardens face a level of aggression when they are fining people, and this could be a reason for the decline in fines being issued, and believes people who are littering aren’t being held responsible. 

“The public are the ones that need to step up to the mark here and actually keep their city clean - it's their pride and it’s their wonderful space” he says. 

“Every effort that we seem to make seems to be failing entirely because there’s a population of people that don’t want to dispose of their waste in an appropriate manner.” 

Mr. Flynn also thinks that bars and restaurants in the city have an onus to maintain a clean environment. 

“I do think that if you have outdoor dining and if you have customers outside your premises, [it’s] very obvious that you have a responsibility to clean up outside your premises. I think that some places do, but some of them don’t for various reasons.”

The north inner city has been named as the most littered area in Ireland, while it has been noted that many tourists pass through this area from the airport. 

“They’re disgusted with it,” says Mr. Flynn. 

“The north inner city is demonised entirely, but it’s not the only offender- large parts of the city are like this.” 

Mr. Flynn stresses that an urgent change in attitude is needed.

“To be fair to the children, they’re the only ones that I can see that are adhering to the law. We need to step up here and make the city beautiful.”

Written by Cara McHugh