Mr. Gerard O'Leary:

I will be happy to answer questions afterwards.

We welcomed the "RTÉ Investigates" programme. From an EPA point of view, it highlighted some of the challenges we face in regulating the waste sector. There are other regulators in the area and I have detailed those in our paper.

We have concerns about the waste sector. While I have pointed to some successes we have had in regulating the sector and the 200-odd activities we regulate, many of the successes have been achieved by dragging companies through the courts system. We do not see the sector coming voluntarily. I suppose I am comparing it to other sectors. We did a review between 2009 and 2013. A total of 40% of our prosecutions were in the waste sector. Regarding the total activities we regulate, between waste and industry, we regulate approximately 800, 200 of which are in the waste sector, so the committee can see that a lot of time is consumed by one sector compared to the other 600.

I cannot recall any other sector that we regulate that has changed so dramatically in the past number of years. Essentially, we now regulate the private sector. We have had to evolve some of our enforcement strategies over the years. I will discuss one of the changes we made two years ago, which, again, has been successful. Across the 800 activities we regulate, we have five regions. We used to be all paper but we are now all electronic and, therefore, we get intelligence much faster than was the case previously. Every three months, we publish on our website the list of activities that are not just regulated by local offices but involve national enforcement. That involves all sections of the EPA in trying to bring what is a small cohort back into compliance. We will publish again next month because the three months are up. The small cohort within the waste sector has featured on those national priority lists so it is something we will publish every three months. Of the activities on the national list, approximately half of them have been prosecuted. We are bringing the most non-compliant activities to the surface and adopting a national approach.

The third issue, which I touched upon and which was featured in the programme, is the fact that we have published three reports on the performance of local authorities with regard to their environmental functions. While the programme focused solely on waste, we cover air and water activities. In the first report we published in 2014, we determined that approximately one third of local authorities' performance in waste enforcement was poor. At that stage, we had pressed for something that was in an earlier Government policy statement in 2012, namely, the establishment of three lead local authorities that would support local authorities. Thankfully, they are now in place. While we can see an improvement in 2017, I do not want to suggest to the committee that just because of the establishment of these lead local authorities, everything will be solved but it is a step in the right direction.