Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when he will make public his proposals to regulate the domestic waste collection industry. [39070/12]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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I published A Resource Opportunity - Waste Management Policy in Ireland in July 20112, on an express commitment of the Programme for Government. This brings much needed policy certainty to the waste sector, and will facilitate planning and investment decisions. The domestic waste collection industry is already regulated under existing waste management legislation and in particular, by the Waste Management (Collection Permit) Regulations 2007. The Government’s new waste policy sets out a range of proposals significantly to revise this regulatory regime to ensure, inter alia, that waste collected is managed in accordance with the waste hierarchy, that mandated service levels are delivered and that Customer Charters are put in place by all waste collection providers.

The work of developing new regulatory structures to give effect to these proposals has commenced and my Department will be engaging with a range of key stakeholders in relation to the detailed design of the new system. These will include the National Waste Collection Permitting Office, local authorities, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Consumer Agency. It is my intention that the revised regulatory regime will deliver both enhanced environmental performance and a quality service for consumers.