Gay Mitchell (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 353: To ask the Minister for Finance the additional cost in income tax per taxpayer if bin charges were eliminated and replaced by income tax. [1052/05]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is responsible in Government for national waste management policy. The position as I understand it is that local authorities are obliged to collect or arrange for the collection of household waste within their functional areas. However, this obligation does not apply in certain circumstances, including where an adequate waste collection service is otherwise available.

At present, of the 34 city-county councils involved in waste management planning, some 20 are privately operated, while 14 remain local authority operated. In the areas where a local authority collection service is in place, the determination of charges for the service is a matter for the local authority itself. In areas where the local authority is not involved in the collection service, the determination of charges is a matter for the private collectors concerned.

The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has no function in the setting of waste charges and therefore it has not been the policy of that Department to collect full data on waste charges. However, based on returns received from local authorities in respect of their 2004 adopted budgets, income from domestic refuse charges applied by local authorities themselves is estimated to amount to €113 million for 2004. This figure does not include data in respect of private collectors.

As the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government does not collect full data on the total cost of waste collection it is not possible to say what the additional cost to the taxpayer would be to provide such a service if bin charges were eliminated.