Mr. Paul McDonald:

I thank the Chairman and Deputy Leddin. The farm plastic scheme is one of a suite of what we call extended producer responsibility, EPR, schemes. This EPR model is an environmental approach whereby the responsibility for a product is extended beyond the post-consumer stage of a product's life cycle. It has been a very successful model that we have used in a number of waste streams in Ireland over several years. People may be familiar with the schemes for electrical equipment, packaging, end-of-life vehicles, tyres and so on. The farm plastic scheme is run by the IFFPG.

From my reading of the matter going back over a number of years, the basis for the introduction of EPR schemes came from EU initiatives. That was essentially because the market had not addressed the issue of this waste arising from waste streams, be it electrical products, tires and so on. We found these schemes provide stability in dealing with a waste stream. This is stability that one would not get in a privatised arena. As we have seen from discussions at the committee earlier and back in May, if a market is subject to fluctuations that is very bad news for the waste arising from it.

As we have seen here, private contractors entered the market on the basis of a commercial decision that they would have made. When that environment changed, we were left to deal with the issue being discussed. EPR schemes were introduced to bring stability to a waste collection stream, a stability that they would not get if they were subject to standard market forces. They have been successful in that.

The model we have in Ireland is that each EPR scheme is run by a system operator. The operator is appointed on approval to the Minister and there are various targets and so on set out for the operator. IFFPG has met those targets. They were approved again earlier this year. As the Deputy said, we are happy that the recycling rate approximately 70% - in the most recent report the figure was 80%. I do not think one would get that level of performance if there was a simple private sector model.