EPA licences near a home: what they mean

Some activities are too polluting to be controlled by planning conditions alone, so they also need a licence from the Environmental Protection Agency. On 30 September 2026 we held 2,065 EPA licences and authorisations, 1,783 of them current. Most are not factories. More than half of the current ones are the waste water treatment plants of towns and villages, which is why so many licence names read "Ballyhooley and Environs". Each one has a page here showing the licence and the planning applications around it. This guide explains the licence types, what the file on each one contains, and how the licence and planning permission fit together.

The licence types

The EPA issues different permissions under different laws. The register names each one:

• Industrial Emissions Licence. For the activities listed in the First Schedule of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992: large manufacturing, chemicals, food and drink, energy, intensive pig and poultry farms above set sizes, and larger waste facilities. It replaced the older IPPC licence when the EU Industrial Emissions Directive was transposed in 2013.
• Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) and IPPC licences. The earlier forms of the same regime. Many were reviewed into industrial emissions licences; the ones still current cover activities that never moved.
• Waste Water Discharge Authorisation. Held by Uisce Éireann for a town's sewage treatment plant and its discharge to a river, lake or the sea, under the Waste Water Discharge (Authorisation) Regulations 2007. A larger agglomeration gets a licence.
• Certificate of Authorisation. The lighter version of the same regime for smaller agglomerations.
• Dumping at Sea Permit. For disposing of dredged material at sea, usually from harbour maintenance.

By sector, the current ones are mostly urban waste water (1,064), then intensive agriculture (130), waste (109), food and drink (99) and chemicals (80).

What the file on each licence shows

Every licence has a profile on the EPA's LEAP portal (Licence Enforcement and Application Portal), linked from each page here. It holds:

1. The licence and its conditions. Emission limits, monitoring, the hours of certain activities, and what must be reported. Read the conditions for the emissions that matter to a neighbour: noise, odour, dust, and discharges to water.
2. Annual environmental reports. The licensee's own yearly return on emissions, monitoring results and complaints received.
3. Enforcement. Site inspections, non-compliances found, and complaints the EPA has recorded. A long list of odour or noise complaints tells you more than the licence does.
4. Applications in progress. A new licence, a review of an existing one, or a technical amendment, with the application documents.

How it meets planning permission

A licensed activity usually needs both. The council grants or refuses planning permission for the building and the use. The EPA licenses the emissions. Section 34(2)(c) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 makes the split explicit: when a council decides an application for an activity that needs an EPA licence, it has to take into account that controlling the emissions is the EPA's job. So the planning conditions deal with layout, traffic, landscaping and hours, and the licence deals with what comes out of the chimney or the outfall.

For a neighbour, that means two separate chances to be heard. You can make an observation on the planning application to the council, and appeal the decision to An Coimisiún Pleanála. On the licence, the EPA publishes the application and a proposed determination, and you can make a submission or an objection to the EPA within the period it sets. The two timetables do not always line up, so watch both.

Buying near a licensed site

A licence near a house is not a reason to walk away. Most of them are sewage plants that have been there for decades, and the licence is what holds them to limits. It is worth three checks before signing:

1. What is it, and how close? Open the licence's page here, for example Ballyhooley and Environs (a town waste water plant) or Horan Pig Enterprises (an intensive pig farm). Each shows the licence type, its status and the planning applications within 250 m.
2. Is anything changing? An application in progress, or a recent planning application to extend the site, is the time things change. Both are on the page.
3. What do the neighbours report? The complaints and non-compliances on LEAP are the practical record of noise and odour.

Check the register near you

The Explorer shows every planning application near an address, and the free report adds zoning, flood flags and the deadlines that are open.

Figures from the EPA's licence register and the council registers on 30 September 2026 (the live table refreshes hourly); law checked 30 September 2026. Check with the EPA or the council before relying on this.

Frequently asked questions

Does an EPA licence mean a site is polluting?

No. It means the activity is of a type and size that the law says the EPA must license, with emission limits and monitoring. Whether a particular site keeps to its limits is in the enforcement record on LEAP.

Why is a sewage plant on the list?

Town and village waste water treatment plants discharge treated sewage to rivers, lakes or the sea, and since the 2007 regulations each one needs an authorisation from the EPA. They are the largest group on the register.

Can I object to an EPA licence?

You can make a submission on a licence application, and object to the EPA's proposed determination within the period it sets. That is separate from the planning application, which goes to the council and on appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála.

Does planning permission cover emissions?

Not for a licensed activity. The council leaves emissions to the EPA (Planning and Development Act 2000, s.34(2)(c)) and deals with the building, the use, traffic and amenity.