Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Yes, my attention has been drawn to this because, during the summer, I met with the company that was experiencing difficulties in this regard and I then contacted the Department and the EPA to discuss this.

Article 28 of the European Communities (Waste Directive) Regulations, S.I. No. 126 of 2011, sets out the grounds by which a material which is recovered or recycled from waste can be deemed to be no longer a waste. As the designated competent authority, decisions regarding applications for end of waste are the responsibility of the EPA. They are not licences; they are determinations. The EPA published guidance documents in 2020 to assist applicants with preparing end of waste applications, and the guidance documents are available on the EPA website.

The waste action plan for a circular economy, launched in 2020, has a dedicated chapter on end of waste, and commits to a number of measures, which include: working with stakeholders to streamline the process; examining whether certain end of waste decisions should be determined by local authorities rather than the EPA; establishing a working group to develop national end of waste applications for identified priority waste streams, which would obviate the need for individual applications within those streams; and introducing a fee for end-of-waste applications to help fund the process and encourage high quality applications. The upcoming circular economy Bill will progress some of these measures to streamline the process.

I also contacted the EPA and asked it for details on how long it was taking to process these determinations, what was involved, was it correctly staffed and so on, and it provided me with data which I can share with the Deputy. Its average processing time, it tells me, is six months once it has received all of the information from the applicants, and it said it has a difficulty with some applications which are incomplete or not supplied with the right information. To address some of the problems that have arisen, the circular economy Bill will contain a number of measures which seek to correct those problems, to make sure determinations are reached rapidly and that we look to see if we can get determinations on a national level, as well as on an individual project level, so those can be reused and drawn upon as needed.

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