Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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1001. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the measures being taken to assist county councils to deal with incidents of illegal dumping and fly tipping; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2882/20]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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On 30 December 2019 I announced that my Department will prepare a radical new waste strategy which will focus on tackling waste, including taking further measures to crack down on illegal dumping.

The new waste strategy will build on a lot of work which is already underway. My Department has introduced a range of measures to target illegal dumping and strengthen waste enforcement generally. These include:

- The provision of an annual waste enforcement grant of €7.4 million to support the recruitment and retention of 150 local authority waste enforcement personnel across the country;

- The establishment of Waste Enforcement Regional Lead Authorities to support and co-ordinate local authority action at a cost of €1 million per annum;

- The establishment of a National Waste Enforcement Steering Committee, which facilitates the deployment of co-ordinated multi-agency responses to illegal waste activity across the regions.

In addition, my Department has developed the Anti-Dumping Initiative to encourage local authorities to work in partnership with community organisations to identify high-risk or problem areas, develop appropriate enforcement responses and carry out necessary clean-up operations. Since 2017, funding of €6.3 million has been made available which has supported approximately 700 projects across all 31 local authority areas, remediating blackspots, while equipping local authority waste enforcement officers with the latest technologies available to tackle this problem. Details of the projects supported per local authority area are available on my Department’s website at:

A further €3 million will be allocated to this initiative in 2020 in order to continue to support communities around the country in their efforts. The criteria for the selection of projects is currently being finalised and will be communicated to local authorities shortly.