Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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123. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment what assessments, if any, the Government have made concerning the remunicipalisation of waste and the various models that are available and operating successfully in other European countries, in particular the ‘franchise’ model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28917/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Local authorities are responsible for municipal waste collection and waste management planning within their functional areas. It is open to any local authority to re-enter the waste collection market as direct service providers if they so choose, either alongside existing permitted service providers or subject to making arrangements to replace those providers.

Under section 60(3) of the Waste Management Act 1996 I am, as Minister, precluded from exercising any power or control in relation to the performance by a local authority, in particular circumstances, of a statutory function vested in it.

Please see gov.ie - Structure of the Household Waste Collection Market (www.gov.ie) for an analysis of the impacts of moving from side by side competition to a franchise market structure. It should be noted that this study does not take account of the costs associated with local authorities acquiring existing customer share or those associated with investing in the necessary collection infrastructure or staff costs.

As Minister, I am focused on introducing measures to drive waste minimisation and improve waste segregation to help us achieve our challenging EU targets. In this regard regulations have recently been signed to introduce incentivised charging for the commercial sector from 1 July and my Department is currently drafting regulations to roll out bio-waste collection to all households in the State with a waste collection service as well as regulations to introduce a waste recovery levy.