Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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513. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the section of the State apparatus that has oversight over a local authority's failure to enforce dumping licences; and the action to be taken in a case where a local authority fails to ensure a licence for dumping is applied for and granted before construction waste is dumped. [35820/16]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The treatment and management of waste material is subject to a registration and permitting system by local authorities or licensing by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as appropriate, and governed by the Waste Management (Facility Permit & Registration) Regulations 2007 or the Waste Management (Licensing) Regulations 2004, as appropriate. Environmental standards in relation to the collection of waste, and their enforcement, are the responsibility of local authorities and are governed by the Waste Management (Collection Permit) Regulations 2007.

The primary purpose of the registration, permitting, and licensing system is to facilitate appropriate controls on waste facilities and activities so as to ensure good and consistent waste management practice and the implementation of high standards of environmental protection.

The Office of Environmental Enforcement (OEE) within the EPA has a mandate to deliver enhanced environmental compliance, both through enforcement of Agency licences issued to waste, industrial and other activities, and also through the supervisory role which it exercises in respect of the environmental protection activities of local authorities.

The OEE may:

- Request information from local authorities on the discharge of their statutory environmental protection functions;

- Carry out broad assessments of their environmental performance, such as environmental audits;

- Provide advice, recommendations, assistance or support;

- Where appropriate, issue a proposed direction to the authority to take specific action within a specified timescale;

- Issue a binding direction where there is a real and imminent risk of significant environmental pollution due to a local authority's failure to carry out its statutory environmental protection functions or to follow advice or recommendations made by the OEE.

Enforcement of conditions attaching to waste collection permits, certificates of registration, waste facility permits or waste licences are matters for the relevant local authority or the EPA as appropriate. Under section 60(3) of the Waste Management Act 1996, I am precluded from exercising any power or control in relation to the performance, in specific cases, by a local authority or the EPA of their statutory functions under the Act.