Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 639: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he is satisfied that the indicators he has introduced to measure performance by local authorities provides adequate coverage of environmental issues. [5441/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The publication, Service Indicators in Local Authorities 2004, by the Local Government Management Services Board reported on performance across 42 indicators of service, covering the broad range of local authority activities. These indicators were drawn up by the local government customer service group, following extensive consultation with local authorities. The customer service group is representative of my Department, local authorities and the Institute of Public Administration.

The 42 service indicators include indicators relating to waste, litter, schools' participation in environmental campaigns and enforcement of environmental and planning complaints. Reporting on these indicators is complemented by an extensive range of other environmental reporting mechanisms such as statutory EPA reports on the state of the environment, key environmental indicator reports, and specific reports on areas such as water quality, drinking water quality and waste management.

At the launch of the 2004 report in July 2005, I accepted the recommendation from the Local Government Management Services Board that there should be no changes to the 42 indicators for 2005 and 2006. This will facilitate local authorities in tracking their performance over three years. However, I will shortly ask the local government customer service group to carry out a wide ranging review of the current suite of indicators and to complete the review in time for any revisions to apply to reporting by local authorities from 2007.