IRISH BUSINESS Against Litter (IBAL) has defended its latest national survey which called Tullamore, Co Offaly, a "litter blackspot" and placed it third from the bottom in a cleanliness league of 55 Irish towns, cities and environs.
Local representatives reacted with dismay and said the survey was discredited.
The rating comes despite the investment by Tullamore Town Council this year of €450,000 on street cleaning and new equipment.
Last September, Tullamore won a bronze medal in the Tidy Towns competition.
Chairman of Tullamore Town Council Seán O'Brien (Labour) said the council spent €250,000 a year on street cleaning and earlier this year paid €200,000 for four street-cleansing machines. A lorry sweeper was also bought to allow the centre of the town to be cleaned more quickly.
Mr O'Brien said the survey was totally discredited as town representatives "certainly do not accept the finding".
"We have had difficulty with this survey over a number of years. They came in February and found some areas not to be to their liking, and based their total findings on that one basis."
Tony McCormack, vice-president of Tullamore and District Chamber, said he was very disappointed. "We feel there has been a lot of work done to the town over the last few years to address this issue." He added that the chamber, the town council and the Tidy Towns Committee had collaborated to enhance locations around Tullamore, especially on all approach routes.
Wojtek Wasik, assistant manager at a local tourist attraction, the Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre on Bury Quay, said he was surprised to hear that Tullamore had been marked down.
Irish Business Against Litter yesterday disclosed the reasons why Tullamore was marked down. It noted that the town "scored very, very poorly" in the first anti-litter league this year.
"There was just one site out of 10 which got the highest litter grade and there were three litter blackspots - the recycle facility at Exhibition and Research Centre, Scoil Eoin Phóil and Canal Walk at Clontarf Road. These sites were not just littered but suffering from long-term neglect. All of the approach roads were littered, including the significant road to Clara."
An Taisce was paid to carry out the study. A spokeman for the heritage group was unavailable for comment.
In the overall survey for all towns, 40 per cent of marks were allocated for approach roads as the anti-litter group felt it was important to create a good first impression.
The IBAL measurements are released three times a year and this is the first report for 2008
During the same period last year, Tullamore was in 24th position, and was described as being "moderately littered".
The chairman of IBAL, Dr Tom Cavanagh, said this year's first round results "will be good for Tullamore" as it was a "wake-up call" for the area.