Dublin's North Inner City is the most littered part of Ireland, the latest research by Irish Businesses Against Litter has concluded. 

The survey also found that Cork’s Northside was also “seriously littered”. 

By contrast, Naas topped the rankings, with Ennis and Killarney taking second and third place. 

On Newstalk Breakfast, IBAL spokesperson Conor Horgan said the group found litter “everywhere” when they inspected Dublin’s North Inner City. 

“That isn’t the way, sometimes it’s let down by litter blackspots and dumping in specific areas,” he said. 

“It was very widespread this time around; that’s frustrating.” 

Mr Horgan continued that there are two things that need to happen for the North Inner City to clean up its act. 

“The need to eliminate collection of people’s waste by bags and replace it by bins,” he said. 

“That’s a critical measure we need to take to improve things; the council has the attention of eliminating bag collection across the city within two years - and that’s exactly what’s needed. 

“There will be difficulties; the reason why there are bag collections is for lack of space primarily. 

Plastic bags full of litter in Dublin. Image: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

“So, there’ll need to be particular solutions put in place to cover those very narrow streets which can’t take bins. 

“The sooner this happens, the sooner we’ll see change in the north inner city.” 

He added that landlords need to be held accountable for the mess their tenants leave behind. 

“The other issue is litter basements, we’ve spoken for years about this and the inability of the council to make landlords responsible, landlords of multi let properties, to make them responsible for the litter in these properties,” he said. 

“Literally, the basements of properties  that are visible to the public where we see large accumulations of what we call ‘long lie’ litter. 

“In other words, it isn’t being cleaned up; the council can’t take the owners to task - that needs to change.” 

A cigarette on the pavement in Dublin. Picture by: Alamy.com.

Mr Horgan said Dublin City Council has promised a taskforce in relation to this issue, which it is organised in conjunction with the Department of the Taoiseach. 

“It’s going to need legislative change, so it may not happen immediately,” he said. 

“But I think these two levers are needed for us to bring about change. 

“There’s no point in us coming on air every six months shining a light on the problem - it hasn’t worked.”

Main image: Rubbish in the River Liffey in Dublin. Picture by: Alamy.com.