According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 48 illegal peat cutting sites were found across the country in 2013, the agency revealed.
He incident was one of 55 that were investigated by the agency during the year for unauthorised industrial or waste activities.
Enforcement officers are currently looking into the cases to determine whether prosecutions should be pursued.
They are also working on a large file of complaints about factories and industrial sites that have been authorized.
Public complaints included bad smells and excessive noise.
Noise complaints have more than doubled to 664, which is just below the 686 complaints about odours.
The next most serious issue was air quality with 65 complaints followed by water quality with 33.
1,492 complaints were received in total about 125 industrial plants during the year.
This is less than one-seventh of the 844 sites licensed and monitored by EPA.
The EPA stated that the public’s role in reporting illegal or non-compliant operations was a crucial tool in helping to address environmental problems.
It said, “We encourage the public report any concerns.
Most complaints are resolved following site visits and advice given by EPA inspectors.
Only 13 cases were ever heard in court in 2021. They led to 125,000 in fines and 180,000 costs for the EPA. Additionally, 5,000 charitable donations were made.
Some facilities were difficult to reach, but they could be done with a lot of visits. Nine sites required at most 10 visits, and one site was visited more often than 30 times.
It belonged to the Arrow Group, Naas, Co Kildare, where they have a number food processing facilities.
It was repeatedly the subject of noise complaints and odour complaints. It spent a second consecutive year on the EPAs priority sites list, which targets it for special attention.
The second-year list included three additional companies: Arran Chemical, Saint Gobain Construction Products, and Tipperary Cooperative Creamery.
Eight of the 11 sites on the list were in the food, drink, and intensive agriculture industries.
These sectors need to improve if Ireland is going to be able support its green image of sustainable production of food and drink, Darragh Page, from the EPA’s office of environmental enforcement.
Our enforcement objective aims to ensure that these sites address environmental issues and return to compliance.
