Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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Question 154: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will advise on a refuse bin collection problem relating to a person (details suppled); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11976/12]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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In a number of remote rural areas, no household waste collection service is provided. For households without a collection service, there is a network of civic amenity sites and bring banks which accept a wide range of waste materials.

The Programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce competitive tendering for household waste collection, under which service providers would bid to provide waste collection services in a given area, for a given period of time and to a guaranteed level of service.

A public consultation designed to inform the policy development process concluded in September 2011. A large number of responses were received from a broad spectrum of interests. A consensus is not apparent and, on almost all of the relevant issues, a considerable breadth of opinion was expressed. All of the responses received, in addition to a summary document, are available on my Department's website, www.environ.ie.

I expect to be in a position to submit final proposals in relation to household waste collection to Government by Easter this year. All policy proposals will be carefully considered by Government and will take account of the full range of issues and perspectives. Issues including uncollected waste and service coverage will be considered in this context.