Dr. Tom Ryan:

I thank the Chairman for inviting the EPA to contribute to a discussion on waste policy and incineration and on the role of the agency. I am joined by Mary Gurrie, programme manager, and Patrick Byrne, senior inspector.

We represent the leadership team in environmental enforcement in the EPA. We will be pleased to address any questions committee members may have on the EPA's role.

As the committee is aware, the EPA is an independent statutory body, established under the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992. We have a wide range of responsibilities, including the regulation of large-scale industrial and waste facilities. There are just over 800 such facilities licensed by the EPA.

The EPA's specific role in the regulation of the waste sector includes authorisation through licensing and the enforcement of licences issued. There are 207 waste activities licensed by the EPA, including landfill sites, the larger waste transfer stations, incinerators and other activities such as compost facilities. The EPA attaches conditions to each licence to ensure that, properly operated, the activity will not cause environmental pollution.

As the focus of this session is incineration, the committee will be interested to note there are two commercial waste incinerator facilities licensed by the EPA that accept municipal waste. In addition, there are nine facilities in the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector that are licensed to operated hazardous waste incinerators for the treatment of waste generated by their facilities. Three cement production facilities are licensed to co-incinerate certain waste material as alternative fuels. A summary of the licence details of each of these plants is provided in our written submission for the information of the committee.

The two incinerators licensed to accept municipal waste are the Indaver facility in Carranstown, County Meath, which commenced operations in 2011 and is authorised to accept 235,000 tonnes of residual waste per annum, and the Dublin Waste to Energy incinerator in Poolbeg, which commenced operations in 2017 and is authorised to accept 600,000 tonnes of waste per annum. The licences for both incinerators contain more than 100 conditions to control the environmental aspects of the activity, including the quantities and types of waste that may be accepted, the control and abatement infrastructure required to reduce emissions and limit values for air, water and noise emissions. While the licenceholders are responsible for complying with the licence conditions, the EPA enforces the conditions through an annual programme of inspections, environmental monitoring and assessment, the identification of non-compliance and, where appropriate, the prosecution of non-compliant operators. In this context, it can be noted the EPA successfully prosecuted Dublin Waste to Energy for breach of licence conditions relating to instant notification in 2017.

Both facilities are required to monitor emissions to atmosphere for a range of parameters, including continuous dioxin sampling and analysis, which is reported fortnightly. In addition, the EPA conducts its own independent air emissions monitoring of the facilities. All monitoring results over the past two years for both facilities have been compliant with the licence conditions.

The EPA is aware of the public concerns regarding emissions from the Poolbeg facility in particular. For additional public assurance and information, the EPA installed an ambient air quality monitoring station in Ringsend in July 2017. Real-time monitoring results are available on the EPA website. Results to date show that the air quality recorded in Ringsend is compliant with national air quality standards and is consistent with air quality elsewhere in Dublin.

I assure the committee that the EPA continues to closely monitor operations at all incineration facilities to ensure a high level of environmental protection. I thank committee members for their attention.