Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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663. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation further to Parliamentary Question No. 613 of 24 May 2016, to clarify if the practice referred to falls within her remit, given the response of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to Parliamentary Question No. 394 of 31 May 2016, namely, that this is a consumer protection issue; and to investigate the practice referred to and the consumer protection implications thereof. [14687/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The previous questions referred to by the Deputy concerned a claim that a company will now only accept payment of invoices for bin charges through an online billing system for electronic tags thereby putting persons without access to the Internet at a disadvantage. The general consumer protection legislation for which my Department has responsibility does not contain provisions on the form to be taken by payment invoices. The need for such provisions has not arisen to date as it is in the interest of businesses to facilitate payment by customers by providing that payments can be made in a number of different ways. In the case of certain regulated sectors, such as energy and household waste collection, service providers are required to have customer charters intended to safeguard the interests of users of the services. As stated in my reply to Parliamentary Question Number 613 of 24 May 2016, the Customer Charter for Household Waste Collection constitutes the Sixth Schedule to the Waste Management Collection (Permit) Regulations 2007 (S.I. No. 820 of 2007) enacted by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government as amended most recently by the Waste Management (Collection Permit) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 (S.I. No. 197 of 2015) and the Waste Management (Collection Permit) (Amendment) Regulations 2016 (S.I. No. 24 of 2016). This Customer Charter requires service providers to provide ‘the highest standards in the provision of waste management services to their customers’ in respect of general customer service; communication with customers; pricing, charging mechanisms and access to account information; and complaint procedures and dispute resolution. Matters relating to the billing and payment practices of companies engaged in household waste collection would accordingly be most appropriately dealt in my view through the Customer Charter for the sector.