Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 November 2017

Public Accounts Committee

2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment

9:00 am

Mr. Mark Griffin:

That is a very important statement to make because if one looks at the work that was done in 2015 as part of the regional waste management plans, which were updated at that point, the local authorities did a further assessment in respect of whether there were additional landfills that would fall into this category. Each of the three regional waste management plans have identified legacy landfills of high, medium or low-risk categorisation. The ones that fall into the high-risk categorisation come to 70 or 71 - I am not sure of the exact figure. They are spread right across the country. In the Deputy's county, one has South Park in Galway city, Gort, New Inn, Glenamaddy, Tuam, Rinkippeen and Portumna. That level of problem is still reflected across the State. While our initial focus was on dealing with the cases that were the subject of the European Court of Justice finding, we will have to continue a programme of remediation works for the foreseeable future.

We are working with the local authorities, the CCMA-----