Dr. Pat McCloughan:

The Repak report refers to the success factors of deposit refund schemes in other countries. It concludes that most of the schemes were introduced at a time when refillables were still commonplace in those countries but the refillables schemes have long disappeared in this country. The second factor is that they were introduced before kerbside recycling was undertaken. In 2008 my colleague, Gill Bevington, authored a report for Repak looking at the same issues of whether a deposit scheme would be suitable for Ireland and she concluded that it would not, because of the same set of factors. One has to ask what has changed in Ireland in the meantime. Has there been any significant change? What has changed is that there has been a growth in the kerbside and household sector, albeit with contamination issues. Tonnage has been growing successfully in these areas and the cost of recycling has also improved.

The cross-Border situation is a big issue and the CSO undertook a module in 2010 on cross-Border shopping. Many people from the deep south of Ireland, Cork, Kerry and Wexford, would journey to Newry and Belfast to do their shopping and the second biggest purchases by these people are alcohol. They spend hundreds of euro, more than people from Donegal or Sligo, and this raises the question of dumping and how we handle the additional items. If the North had its own scheme it would raise the question of co-ordination. We are not in outright opposition to a scheme but we appeal to the evidence. There has been a debate about that but we have to deal with the facts from official sources.