Mr. Paddy Murphy:

I am president of the Irish Tyre Industry Association, ITIA, and the managing director of the largest retail company in tyres and car service in Ireland. What comes to me as I sit here is if this was such a robust consultative process, why are we all sitting here and why is there such disagreement? Why is all of this going on at the last moment? The feeling is we have been in rooms but we have never been heard. We believe a scheme can work and we are willing to engage if we are heard and listened to in order to develop that scheme. We are willing to engage with stakeholders but we also want competition as it drives down price for the consumer. I represent the consumer as the president of the ITIA as our members deal with retail customers.

All these charges are on new tyres in order to deal with the waste of the future. The simple fact is no new tyres are in bogs or the sides of lakes. They are nowhere except in storage. This should be focused on dealing with waste tyres but that is not what is going on. We have built a cumbersome, bureaucratic and unenforceable system that does not recognise the system in the North. It will fail because the industry will be frustrated and angry at not being listened to. I do not deny we have been in the rooms but we have not been heard. We are asking that this committee give us the chance to be heard and develop a proper scheme. We can do that. It absolutely can be done as we are as interested in removing waste from this market as much as anybody.