Mr. Paul Morrin:

I thank the Chairman for giving the CSO the opportunity to address the committee. The first two paragraphs of the opening statement are for the official record.

We have been invited to discuss the research paper, Fossil Fuel and Similar Subsidies, but this is part of a wider Irish and international context for environmental statistics. I will briefly describe this context before describing the research paper in some detail. The United Nations system of environmental economic accounting, SEEA, is a statistical system bringing together economic and environmental information to a common framework to measure the condition of the environment, the contribution of the environment to the economy and the impact of the economy on the environment. The SEEA contains an internationally agreed set of standard concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules and tables to produce internationally comparable statistics.

The statistical office of the European Commission, EUROSTAT, has developed a series of mandatory and voluntary environmental accounts modules based on the SEEA. The CSO publishes a broad range of statistical releases on the EUROSTAT SEEA modules and other areas of environment statistics. The releases most relevant to the committee's recent discussions, in addition to the research paper, Fossil Fuel and Similar Subsidies, relate to environmental taxes, environmental subsidies and similar transfers, environmental accounts air emissions and domestic building energy ratings, BERs.

The following sections provide a brief summary of the research paper and the relevant official environmental releases. I will first deal with the research paper.