Waterford is Ireland’s cleanest city.

The Anti-Litter League results have just been published by Irish Business Against Litter and it’s good news for most of the country.

Waterford City occupies 8th spot in the ranking of 40 town and cities.

Ballybeg has retained its ‘Clean’ status.

Fermoy in Cork was the cleanest town in Ireland in 2018.

Despite some persistent black spots in urban areas of Dublin, Cork and Galway – IBAL’s Conor Horgan says most of Ireland is sparkling, with Fermoy shining the brightest.

Mr Horgan said the historic development of large areas of social housing “has shaped a ‘them and us’ society and the gap is widening. Litter is a symptom of a greater malaise and keeping these areas as clean and well presented as the rest of a city would over time have significant benefits. We need local authorities to take the lead.”

A total of 17 locations were found to be clean to European norms, while 13 were determined to be “cleaner than European norms” — with Fermoy beating Athlone, Killarney, Naas, and Navan to the top spot.

The Cork town last achieved success in 2007, and will mark the achievement with a specially commissioned public sculpture worth €40,000.