Mr. Matthew Collins:

I will refer the questions from the Senator to Repak ELT on the different uses of the tyres and how it manages the tyres that are collected.

With regards to farmers registering tyres, we are not trying to impose anything new on them. They register their tyres with the local authority and we are bringing that into a single scheme. Rather than have a local authority managed tracking scheme and a Repak ELT tracking scheme, we will have one scheme. The benefit is that will enable to track those tyres and bring them into the system for collection as well. It will, therefore, work to the benefit of the farming community. It is not meant to implement anything new. It is something they do at the moment without any of the benefits of tracking and the collection of tyres.

The sum of €11 was agreed by the tyres working group on 30 May. That is where the figure came from. Hauliers have raised concerns in respect not just of Northern Ireland haulage, but of international haulage. We have asked the association to come back to us on that and to discuss that further. We are again open to examining that.

On the North-South issue, we had engagement with Northern Irish officials. They were members of the working group but the question is how we will address the environmental issue of tyres going missing and ending up in our countryside. It does not matter if someone is from Northern Ireland, Sweden, France, Germany or Canada, the scheme is designed such that once the tyres are placed on the market, that is where the legal responsibility for registering the tyres comes from. That is where enforcement will play a key role. Local authority officials are unable to attend the meeting because of the weather conditions but they have a key role in enforcement at retailer level to ensure retailers are registering their tyres. That is one element that will ensure the scheme-----