Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)
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Question 1567: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the actions he intends to take on foot the recent Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government report which shows a variation in recycling in local authority areas of between 7.2% and 56%. [30102/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I very much welcome the publication of the Third Report of the Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government on Recycling of Household Waste in Ireland. The percentages for recycling given in Table 1 of the Report are based on returns submitted by 19 out of 34 city and county councils surveyed. The average household diversion rate reported by Councils that made a return was 27.75%, a very significant increase on the 19.5% diversion of household waste from landfill reported by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the National Waste Report 2004.

The Oireachtas report, along with Service Indicators in Local Authorities 2005 recently published by the Local Government Management Services Board, allows elected representatives and the public to scrutinise the performance of their local authority with a view to identifying where improvements in services can be delivered.

My Department will continue to provide support to local authorities as part of an overall waste management policy that has seen dramatic improvements in waste management performance in recent years as evidenced by increases in national recycling rates to over 34%, and of the other key significant achievements in this area includes: doubling the number of bring banks over the period from 1998 to 2004, rising from 837 to 1,929; increasing the number of recycling centres substantially from 30 to 69 over the same period; diversion of household waste from landfill rose 8 fold from 37,000 tonnes in 1998 to almost 300,000 tonnes, in 2004; the roll-out of segregated collection of recyclables grew from 70,000 households in 1998 to over 560,000 by 2003 and is continuing to rise; of packaging waste (bottles, cans, cardboard etc) recycled in 2004, one year ahead of the 50% target required under EU Law, up from 15% in 1998; the EPA estimate that 85.2% of construction and demolition waste was recycled in 2004.