Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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128. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will detail the level of funding support that has been allocated to local authorities to combat dumping in 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9377/22]

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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The Anti-Dumping Initiative (ADI) was introduced  in 2017 to encourage a collaborative approach between local authorities, communities, and other State Agencies to tackling the problem of illegal dumping. Funding of over €12 million has been provided by my Department under the Initiative, which has supported the delivery of over 1,250 projects nationwide. Details of funding, broken down by local authority and individual project, for each of the years 2017-2021 are available on the gov.ie website at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/publication/e27ac-anti-dumping-initiative/​. Allocations for 2022 have yet to be finalised, but I anticipate that a further €3m will be made available to support the Initiative in 2022.

My Department also continues to invest significantly in the local authority waste enforcement network under the Local Authority Waste Enforcement Measures Grant Scheme, with the intention of maintaining a visible presence of waste enforcement personnel on the ground across the State. Over €7.7m was provided to local authorities under the scheme in 2021, while my Department also provides ongoing support (€1mn in 2021) to the Waste Enforcement Regional Lead Authorities, which were established to position the local authority sector to better respond to emerging and priority waste enforcement challenges.