Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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226. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the amount spent by his Department on outside contract and or third party public relations communications for the purposes of raising awareness of the implications of changes to domestic waste collection pricing structures in the past three years to date in 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31638/17]

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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227. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the amount spent by his Department on internal communications campaigns for the purposes of raising awareness of the implications of changes to domestic waste collection pricing structures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31639/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 226 and 227 together.

The announcement of the phase out of 'flat rate fees' was made on 27 June. The phasing out of flat rate fees will come into effect for kerbside household waste customers when their flat rate contracts expire over the 12 month period between Autumn 2017 to Autumn 2018. It is worth noting that the measure is not ‘new’ for the more than half of kerbside household waste customers who are already on an incentivised pricing plan, i.e. a plan which contains a per lift or weight based charge element.

The review around the introduction of incentivised pricing has evolved over the last 12 months. I clearly signalled in December 2016 that a 'one size fits all' approach would not be introduced and that I was determined that the market should be allowed to continue to offer a range of options to householders.  A campaign developed by the Regional Waste Management Planning Offices focusing on reducing food waste generation and also encouraging the use of brown bin and focusing on food waste generation was run in March 2017, comprising of radio and cinema advertisements and backed up by a social media campaign. Following last week's announcement, further campaigns will be rolled out over the second half of 2017 addressing issues such as food waste, waste prevention, explaining how per lift and weight based charging models work and increasing and improving recycling,

In terms of monies spent to date, a grant of almost €28,000 was paid to the Regional Waste Management Planning Offices in preparation for the proposed introduction of a per kilogramme pay by weight model in 2016. An allocation of €1.6 million has been made for education and awareness in 2017, which will be used to fund the continued roll out of a comprehensive waste campaign by the Regional Waste Management Planning Offices.