Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 417: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he has accepted as policy the recommendations of the expert group commissioned to advise him on strategic waste policy that no more than 25% of all biodegradable municipal refuse collected nationally should be burned in incinerators; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35833/09]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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I recently arranged for environmental consultants to prepare an Environmental Report, according to Strategic Environmental Assessment requirements, to inform the policy making process for waste management in respect of a proposed policy direction under section 60 of the Waste Management Act intended to achieve a number of objectives. One such objective is to seek to ensure that incineration capacity does not reach a level such that waste is drawn to incineration which could have been dealt with by prevention, reuse, recycling, composting/anaerobic digestion of source segregated biowaste, MBT or other methods which are higher up the waste hierarchy.

In advance of finalising the Strategic Environmental Assessment comments on the environmental report were invited from relevant stakeholders, and any other interested parties, which attracted some forty, many very detailed and technical, submissions. My Department is currently considering the submissions and in accordance with Article 18 of the SEA Regulations the next stage in the SEA process will be the preparation of an SEA statement.