Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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200. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the litter and waste budget for each local area authority in the past ten years in tabular form. [10172/19]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The information requested by the Deputy is not held by my Department as the budget is a function of the local authority. The Local Government Act 2001, as amended by the Local Government Reform Act 2014, provides the legislative basis for the budget process. The budget is developed in a phased process involving input from the Chief Executive, the municipal district members and the Corporate Policy Group. The adoption of the budget is a reserved function of the local authority. Each local authority budget is prepared in the context of a corporate plan, with financial resources allocated to strategies supporting the objectives of the corporate plan for the forthcoming year.

Waste Management costs for local authorities may include landfill operation and aftercare, operation of recovery and recycling facilities, waste management planning, waste regulation, monitoring and enforcement, as well as litter management and street cleaning.

However, data in relation to litter expenditure by each Local Authority on street/road cleaning, litter warden services, and litter public awareness initiatives, for the years 2010 to 2016 is publically available on my Departments website at the following link:

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Furthermore, the costs of waste enforcement are directly supported by my Department under the Local Authority Enforcement Measures Scheme. This scheme, which has been in place since 2004, facilitates local authorities to:

- carry out a verifiable programme of waste enforcement activity and associated work plan by each local authority;

- deal with national waste enforcement priorities; and

- send a strong signal to unauthorised waste operators or dumpers that a robust waste enforcement presence will continue to be maintained.

Below are details of the current waste enforcement grant allocation to each Local Authority under this scheme: