Mr. Niall Cody:

There are now two markers. There is the dye, green in our case and red in the North, and then the Accutrace marker, which is a detectable chemical marker.

The level of detection is quite sophisticated and the State Laboratory does all of the sampling for us, if a case is for criminal prosecution. The levels will be detectable if road diesel is diluted with washed green or orange diesel. Trace elements will be detectable and the case will be subject to prosecution. The Comptroller and Auditor General made a recommendation in the chapter on the issue - the random sampling of retailers across the board. We have done this and had no detections. This is not to say it cannot get into the supply chain by direct hauliers or direct couriers, for which we will still check. When we make interventions in businesses that have significant haulage interests, we look to make sure they are buying enough legitimately sourced goods from legitimate traders. We pay a lot of attention to this area. If members have details they wish to provide for us of retailers about whom they may have doubts, there is a good citizen report on our website.