Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 885: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he has allocated or intends to allocate funding to halt the coastal erosion and remediate the old landfill site north of Bray Harbour that straddles the administrative boundaries of Wicklow and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Councils; the works already undertaken to address this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19835/05]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that Wicklow and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Councils are in consultation regarding the carrying out of trial digs and the taking of samples to facilitate a risk assessment for this site and the further action may be required following this.

In addition, I recently issued under section 60 of the Waste Management Act 1996 a direction to all local authorities requiring them to ensure that the requirements of section 22 of that Act are fully met in the current review of their waste management plans. Section 22 states that a waste management plan shall include information on the identification of sites at which waste disposal or recovery activities have been carried on; the assessment of any risk of environmental pollution arising as a result of such activities; measures proposed to be taken or, where such an assessment has already been made, measures taken to prevent or limit any such environmental pollution; and the identification of necessary remedial measures in respect of such sites and measures proposed to be taken or, where such measures have already been identified, measures taken to achieve such remediation having regard to the cost-effectiveness of available remediation techniques.

In response to the policy direction the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing a code of practice for assessing the risk posed by such sites. Clearly, there may be cost implications in relation to the remediation of older sites, such as the Bray site, which are or were in the ownership of local authorities. Pending the outcome of the section 22 process it is not possible to quantify the extent of future costs in this regard.