Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this Adjournment on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley.

Article 20 of Directive 2006/21/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the management of waste from extractive industries, required member states to ensure that an inventory of closed waste facilities, including abandoned waste facilities, located in their territory which cause serious negative environmental impacts or have the potential of becoming in the medium or short term a serious threat to human health, is drawn up and periodically updated. Ireland transposed this directive with the making of the Waste Management (Management of Waste from the Extractive Industries) Regulations 2009.

In compliance with the requirement of Article 20 of the directive, the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency recently published the report of the Historic Mine Sites -Inventory and Risk Classification project. This report identifies waste piles and other features, for example shafts and adits or entrances associated with closed mines. The project set out to assess the potential risk posed by these sites to human and animal health and to the wider environment, and to consider issues related to safety at each of the sites.

Of the 27 sites or districts investigated as part of the study, the report identified three "class 1" or priority sites, which were determined by use of a scoring system based among other factors on the source of contamination and who or what might be affected by it. The site at Tynagh was among these priority sites, and the report made a number of recommendations. These included, inter alia, that the local authorities should be advised of all issues of environmental concern falling within their functional area. In addition, the report indicated that other authorities such as the Health Services Executive, the Health and Safety Authority and Teagasc might also need to be informed of specific relevant issues and that priority sites should have a full environmental risk assessment carried out, if not already undertaken. Ongoing monitoring at these sites was recommended. The report also recommended that a scientific-based monitoring scheme should be developed appropriate to each of the site classes, incorporating relevant expertise from the EPA and the Geological Survey of Ireland.

The issue of remediation of such former mine sites is a matter for the owners of such sites. Enforcement is a matter for the local authorities in the first instance.

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