Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 384: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if all local authorities have completed the register of contaminated sites; if any have not done so; and the action he is proposing to ensure compliance. [5691/09]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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A policy direction issued from my Department on 3 May 2005 in regard to local authorities, in the course of reviewing their statutory waste management plans, complying with the requirements of section 22 of the Waste Management Acts by preparing an inventory and risk assessment of all non-licensed closed landfills where disposal or recovery activities have taken place. To assist local authorities in this process, the EPA has developed a dedicated web site. However the web site is not, nor is intended to be, a register of contaminated sites.

Under the Waste Management (Certification of Historic Unlicensed Waste Disposal and Recovery Activity) Regulations 2008 local authorities are obliged to identify and register by 30 June 2009 all closed unlicensed landfills which were operated by them during the period 15 July 1977 to 27 March 1997, i.e. in the period between the adoption of relevant EU requirements and their having full effect in Ireland through the waste licensing system now the statutory responsibility of the EPA. The Agency are to prescribe the particulars to be entered in the register and the form and manner in which such information is to be entered and maintained, and will shortly do so.

Local authorities are also required, under section 26(2) of the Acts, to identify and assess sites at which waste disposal activities were carried out that to a significant extent involved hazardous waste. The EPA in 2007 published a Code of Practice for Environmental Risk Assessment for Unregulated Waste Disposal Sites. The code provides the framework for local authorities to establish any environmental risk posed by such sites.