Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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Question 570: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he intends to introduce measures to regulate the collection of domestic waste in order to reduce the frequency of visits to congested residential areas by competing waste collection companies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26594/12]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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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 system otherwise known as 'franchise-bidding.'

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.

My Department is currently finalising a regulatory impact analysis to examine the costs, benefits and other impacts of options for change, and to inform how best to regulate the household waste collection market.

I expect to be in a position to finalise proposals for Government in relation to household waste collection in the coming weeks. All policy proposals, including franchise-bidding, will be carefully considered by Government and will take account of the full range of issues and perspectives, including those related to overlapping collection networks operated by competing waste collection firms.