Vol. 529 No. 1
758 Mr. Gormley asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the amount of money which has been paid to a company (details supplied) by his Department; the role of the litter monitoring body; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30474/00]
TES Consulting Engineers, formerly Tobin Environmental Services Limited, were appointed as the monitoring body for the national litter pollution monitoring system for a three year period in May 1999. To date, a total of £176,900 has been paid to the company in respect of its work as monitoring body.
The principal objectives of the monitoring system are to monitor and assess local authority litter management and enforcement action. Under the system, local authorities are to carry out local litter surveys to identify systematically the composition and extent of litter pollution in their areas. Local authorities will be able to use data from the surveys to refine needs and priorities at local level to prevent and control litter, and to target anti-litter action accordingly. The surveys will also establish benchmark assessments of the extent of the litter problem in each local authority area, against which progress can be judged.
Under the system, the monitoring body is responsible for determining the survey methodologies, obtaining and reviewing local authority survey reports, and assessing action by local authorities on foot of the survey results. At this stage, considerable work has been carried out by the monitoring body in planning and developing the monitoring system and the next step is for local authorities to carry out the necessary litter surveys in their areas; this will be the main focus of the work over the coming months.
