Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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97. To ask the Taoiseach if he satisfied that the Waste Generation Survey 2012 conducted recently by the Central Statistics Office meets with the commitment to reduce bureaucracy and red tape for small and medium enterprises in that a one page survey has two instruction manuals one of five pages on how to fill in the details and one of 77 pages on the technical terms that must be used in completing the survey which is statutory to complete; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26645/13]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Waste Generation Survey 2012 is being undertaken by the CSO to meet EU legal requirements on reporting waste statistics. The relevant legal act is Commission Regulation (EC) No.2150/2002 of 25 November 2002 as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No. 849/2010 of 27 September 2010. The survey will provide comprehensive information on the types and volumes of waste being produced by the services and industry sectors.

The survey sample covers around 1.6% of all enterprises with lower sampling rates used for small and medium enterprises. The sample excludes enterprises that already return similar administrative data to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The 77- page survey booklet mainly consists of the detailed classification of waste items and an alphabetical look-up index to facilitate respondents.

One of the CSO's high level goals is to reduce burden on respondents. The CSO's 2011 Response Burden Monitor showed that the administrative burden on business due to CSO surveys in 2011 was 70% of what it was in the base year 2008. The level of administrative burden due to statistics is 0.3% of the Business Regulation Forum's estimate of the total cost of regulation to Irish business.