Dr. Pat McCloughan:

I am the managing director of PMCA economic consulting. Along with Ms Gill Bevington, an independent packaging consultant based in the UK, I was commissioned to write a report examining the rationale and likely effects of the beverage container deposit scheme as proposed in the Bill.

I will highlight the main conclusions of the study. On the rationale for the proposal, the way that economists would usually look at this is to ask if there is evidence of a market failure. Our report reviews the literature and previous studies, including a 2004 OECD report which sums the situation up well. It says that the rationale for a deposit scheme in a jurisdiction where there is already an extended producer responsibility scheme, EPR, such as Repak in Ireland, is just litter control. That leads to the question of whether there is a litter problem in Ireland and specifically one of beverage containers. Fortunately, there is extensive information for the position in Ireland provided by Tobin Consulting Engineers in tandem with local authorities. We have looked at that evidence in detail and it shows two things. The overall litter problem in Ireland is diminishing, as one would expect, because Ireland is a country with a green and clean environment and we have a vested interest in ensuring that. Looking specifically at the beverage container litter, as others have noted already, about 3% of all litter in Ireland is beverage containers and when one adds drinks cartons it increases to 3.5%. The trend over time is decreasing.