Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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224. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the timeline for the phase-out of incineration in our waste management system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39456/25]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy (WAPCE) sets out an overall policy and regulatory approach to support the development of adequate and appropriate treatment capacity at indigenous facilities to ensure that the full circularity and resource potential of materials is captured in Ireland. This framework is intended to create the market conditions required to support indigenous waste treatment capacity by ensuring that the right material ends up in the right bin, and in a suitable condition, thus making it available for separate collection and subsequent recycling, reuse, or repair and minimising the material which eventually goes for disposal to landfill or incineration at waste-to-energy facilities.

Incentivised pricing systems backed by strong and consistent enforcement also play a key role. The measures outlined in the WAPCE provide a significant incentive to drive segregation, increasing the value of the contents of recycling bins and brown bins and thereby creating the necessary conditions to support the viability of indigenous recycling capacity as well as composting and digestate facilities. The Regional Waste Management Planning Offices launched a new National Waste Management Plan in 2024 which sets out the required actions at local and regional levels to deliver on the WAPCE and support Ireland's circular economy transition including several specific actions to address domestic waste treatment infrastructure challenges.

The Department has also commissioned a study to explore the feasibility, potential benefits and risks associated with transitioning our waste collection system from its current model of side-by-side market competition to a franchise tendering system for local authority areas or regions. The recommendations from this study will inform the next iteration of the WAPCE, while the publication of Ireland’s second Circular Economy Strategy later this year will stimulate investment in climate-resilient infrastructure by focusing on measures that enhance our capacity to transform waste into secondary materials.

However, it needs to be acknowledged that, while the measures referred to above are intended to maximise the volume of waste materials which are reused or recycled, there is a continuing need to ensure there is sufficient treatment capacity to manage the residual waste fractions which unfortunately cannot be reused or recycled. Thermal treatment at waste-to-energy facilities, which sits on the recovery tier of the Waste Hierarchy, will continue to be preferred to disposal at landfills and as such there are no plans to phase out the use of incineration at waste-to-energy facilities from our waste management system. This is recognised in the National Waste Management Plan which recommends the provision of an additional 200,000 to 300,000 tonnes of thermal recovery capacity for the treatment of non-hazardous residual waste. This is also reflected in the current Programme for Government which contains a commitment to assess the need for a new waste-to-energy facility.