I wish to inform the House that the Department of the Marine controls dumping of sewage sludge at sea and the Department of the Environment controls pumping of sewage into the sea.
Under the Dumping at Sea Act, 1981, the Minister for the Marine may grant or refuse to grant a permit authorising dumping at sea operations. Dublin Corporation currently holds an annual permit granted by my Department permitting the disposal of up to a maximum of 340,000 tonnes of sewage sludge at sea during 1996 with a maximum of 2,000 tonnes to be dumped per day. Three trips are normally made to the site per week with approximately 2,000 tonnes being disposed of on each trip. The dump site is located some 14 miles south-east of the Kish Lighthouse in Dublin Bay.
The dump site is dispersive in nature and monitoring carried out in 1993 revealed that there was no significant impact on sediment fauna in the area. According to international practice, monitoring of such sites is recommended at approximately five year intervals and the site will be resurveyed in 1998. Under present disposal conditions environmental problems are not anticipated at this site.