Mr. Niall Murray:

I wanted to address the question of the size of the market. Several speakers have said that one of the problems they had was determining the size of the market. The CSO publishes tyre numbers on the market on an annual basis. As the last president of TRACS, which was the previous compliance scheme, I have added an appendix to our presentation to show what the numbers were. I will read out some of the relevant ones.

TRACS represented all of the manufacturers and most of the major producers in the country and a very large cross-section of retailers. In our best year, we were able to report on 90% of the tyres put on the market, according to the CSO numbers. It is a matter of public record, contained in the annual TRACS report and tied to the CSO figures, that in 2014, collectors reported 83% of the waste arising. The reason the TRACS failed was not because the members did not support the idea of reporting the tyres coming on and off the market. It was simply a question of there being no enforcement at the collection point. Mr. Collins mentioned an exposé on "Prime Time" on RTE in which five very large dumps of tyres were displayed. In each case, that dump was as a direct result of a collector with a permit from the local authority collecting tyres with absolutely no intention of recycling the tyre. At the time, representatives of TRACS and the ITIA visited every local authority in the country asking how we might help them to identify non-compliers. In nearly every case, the problem was one of resources. They did not have the resources to go out and visit the people who were not compliant. In the early days, TRACS knew exactly who the economic operators were in the country. It presented a list of the non-registered members to every local authority on a monthly basis so resources could be targeted at the non-compliant people operating in the industry. It is not correct to say the numbers of tyres placed on the market are unknown. They are absolutely known. The CSO gathers the numbers from the Intrastat reports on companies like mine which import tyres. If the Intrastat report does not show a figure that is within 5% of the VAT return, there is an audit. The numbers are absolutely beyond reproach. It is incorrect for anybody around the table to say they do not know the size of the market.