Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take both questions together.

I thank the Deputies for raising this issue. The waste to energy plant concerned is being procured as a public private partnership, PPP, by Dublin City Council acting on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities in the context of the regional waste management plan for which the relevant local authorities have statutory responsibility.

As Members are aware, this project is the subject of applications by Dublin City Council for planning permission and a waste licence. These are matters for An Bord Pleanála and the Environmental Protection Agency, respectively, which are statutorily independent in the exercise of their regulatory functions.

Given the intention to use a public private partnership to deliver the project, my Department was required, in line with public policy, to be satisfied that the procurement process was properly conducted in accordance with national and EU requirements and this was done. Signing off on the public private partnership constitutes the extent of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government's involvement in this regard.

On 19 February 2007, Dublin City Council informed my Department that, following a change in ownership, the selected service provider for the project has been seeking significant changes in the financial and commercial terms originally agreed. As these changes would not comply with the terms of the original procurement under the strict conditions required by the PPP process, it is not open to the council to accept the changes and the procurement should be terminated and a new procurement process commenced.

My Department understands that the council is informing the service provider of its position at a meeting tomorrow morning. Dublin City Council will continue to have responsibility for taking the project through the planning and waste licensing processes already under way.

It remains the Government's policy to support local authorities in implementing the internationally accepted approach to waste management. This embodies a waste hierarchy in which waste prevention, reuse and recycling are the primary objectives and thermal treatment with energy recovery is preferred to landfill for the management of residual waste. The siting of any individual installation is not a matter in which the Government plays a role. As Members are aware, that is a matter for the local authorities promoting a particular project. Site selection is very much a matter for the sponsoring authority and is not a matter which is either cleared with, or promoted by, the Government.

See this speech in context