The country has seen its best ever result in a new litter survey.

Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) say 80% of towns and cities are as clean as their European counterparts.

It also shows improvements in cleanliness across the country over the past year.

Over 90% of rural towns surveyed were deemed clean, while Dublin, Cork and Galway city centres all scored well in a ranking of 40 areas.

Source: IBAL

Tullamore topped the rankings, followed by Dublin Airport Environs and Leixlip.

The survey found there was still a wide gap between towns and disadvantaged city areas, with the latter occupying the bottom six places in the ranking.

While 85% of 32 tourist sites surveyed were clean - among them the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre, Muckross House in Killarney, Guinness Storehouse and Newgrange - with the remainder exhibiting small amounts of litter.

Cork City North and Dublin’s North Inner City were also labelled ‘littered’ in the latest survey.

But these locals near Croke Park are keen to defend the area.