Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

Fine Gael broadly supports the Bill. We may table amendments later but we are happy with the Bill as drafted. It is a complicated Bill. When I received a copy of it, I hoped that my two years of chemistry lectures would be of some use but perhaps if I had studied law, I might have been better equipped to understand its provisions. I acknowledge the work of the European Parliament, particularly in regard to the REACH directive. The initial directive proposed by the Commission was far-reaching, anti-business and anti-industry but the important work done by the European Parliament, particularly by members of the European People's Party, the Party of European Socialists and the liberal group, has produced a more realistic directive, which balances the needs of industry and the importance of environmental protection and health and safety.

The REACH directive replaces 40 legislative texts with a single regulatory system and it fits into the global harmonised system of classification. While the Bill reflects the Seveso, REACH and the Rotterdam directives, it does not transpose the GHS directive. I understand, following the regulatory impact analysis, it is intended to amend the Bill by means of statutory instrument or secondary legislation when the directive is agreed. I share the view of Deputy Michael D. Higgins who is critical of the extent to which statutory instruments and secondary legislation are used. I do not understand why the GHS directive cannot be incorporated in the Bill and commenced at a later date rather than amending the European Communities Act 1972.

It is important to recognise the importance of the manufacturing sector in Ireland. We are often concerned and rightly critical about the demise of manufacturing but, at the same time, more than 200,000 people are employed in the sector, which is 11% of total employment in the State, and 25,000 are employed in the chemicals industry, which accounts for 23.3% in added value to the economy, as opposed to 1.7% for agriculture and 9% for construction. We debate building and agriculture at length but the added value of the manufacturing industry is not mentioned very much. It is important that legislation that impacts on manufacturing does not make it less competitive, and the Bill does not do so.

It focuses on oversight of industry and enforcement procedures as the burden of proof regarding testing, and evaluation of the risks of chemicals is transferred to industry. The Bill sets out the national authorities that will enforce the EU regulations and provides for co-operation among national authorities and between national authorities and authorities of other EU member states. It lays down enforcement procedures and penalties for those industries found in breach of the EU regulations. The Bill also aims to further the better regulation agenda by streamlining existing legislation in the area of chemicals enforcement into one Act. I will refer to the RIA later.

With regard to guidelines, the legislation provides for a code of practice to be drawn up by the Health and Safety Authority, setting out practical guidance as regards compliance. The HSA will be given responsibility to review legislation and to make proposals to the Minister, as appropriate. The authority has been designated as the national competence authority in this area, which is welcome. I am glad the Minister resisted the temptation to establish a national chemicals agency, as is the wont of the Government, and a new board and headquarters with an annual report translated into Irish and a website. I appreciate he resisted the opportunity to establish a new quango. Other relevant authorities covered by the legislation include the Revenue Commissioners, the Ministers for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Health and Children and the Environmental Protection Agency. National authorities must co-operate with each other in the performance of their functions under the Bill. Such co-operation includes the carrying out of inspections or investigations and the sharing of information. National authorities may also make mutual co-operation arrangements with authorities of EU member states and EEA states, subject to ministerial order.

The Minister of State outlined enforcement procedures. A national authority may appoint inspectors for the purposes of the enforcement of all or any of the relevant chemicals statutory provisions. I am not clear as to whether these will be HSA inspectors or chemical inspectors, who would have to be appointed. The Bill grants an inspector standard powers, provided in other Acts, to examine and search any place to which he or she has reasonable grounds for believing that the relevant chemicals statutory provisions apply; require that a location and anything at it be left undisturbed for so long as is reasonably necessary for the purpose of any search, examination, investigation, inspection or inquiry under the relevant chemicals statutory provisions; require the person in charge to produce any chemical or report relevant to the chemicals directive; remove records from that place and retain the records; require the person in charge to give him or her such assistance and facilities within the person's power or control as are reasonably necessary to enable him or her to exercise any of his or her powers; examine any person whom he or she reasonably believes to be able to give him or her information relevant to any search, examination, investigation, inspection or inquiry; take samples of air, soil, water or waste at or near that place; where appropriate, install, use and maintain at that place monitoring equipment; require the person in charge to supply the inspector, without charge, any chemicals or samples and to remove such chemicals; and take all steps to ensure product and company confidentiality.

I read the Competition Authority's submission regarding amendments to the Competition Act. The authority has similar inspection powers but it raised the issue of inspecting cars and vehicles. When the Act is amended, the authority is seeking the inclusion of a provision for its officers to inspect private or company cars on site because they have had problems in this regard during inspections. Should that provision be included in this legislation? For example, if relevant information, documentation or samples are in a vehicle, there may be a difficulty using it as evidence without specifically stating in legislation that the inspector may access vehicles.

An inspector under this legislation can ask for an improvement plan and can issue a contravention notice. Provision is also made for an inspector to go to the High Court, which the Minister outlined. A national authority, in the interests of protection of human health or the environment, may publicise information relating to matters giving rise to the issuing of contravention notices or prohibition notices. The HSA may from time to time compile and publish a list of persons convicted of an offence under the relevant chemicals statutory provisions and on whom prohibition notices have been served.

I hope this will happen. A number of naming and shaming provisions exist in legislation. The employment compliance Bill will also include for the first time provision for naming and shaming. I do not see much naming and shaming being done and I would like to see people who transgress laws being named and shamed more often. The Revenue Commissioners name and shame tax defaulters but I rarely see planning authorities naming and shaming. I hope it will become the normal practice for violators of environmental legislation and legislation such as this to be named and shamed. It is a very effective tool for promoting compliance to embarrass and shame people when they break the rules.

As referred to by the Minister of State the offences and penalties include a fine not exceeding €5,000 or six months imprisonment or both and a maximum penalty on indictment to be €3 million or a term of imprisonment not to exceed two years or both. The aim in this legislation would be for compliance rather than imprisonment but naming and shaming could be very useful. We may even propose an amendment requiring that people be named and shamed in certain circumstances.

Where an offence under the Act is committed by a body corporate and that act giving rise to the offence was authorised by a director or manager of the body corporate, both the person and the body corporate are liable to be prosecuted.

If I may digress, I know that most Members of the House would be aware of my interest in regulation and the better regulation agenda. I am pleased that at long last the Government has agreed to a 25% target for the reduction of the administrative costs of regulation by 2012. I am yet to be convinced that the Government is serious about this matter. We have yet to calculate what the base figure is so that a reduction of 25% can be achieved. The absence of baseline calculations is very worrying.

The Financial Regulator attended the Joint Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs on Tuesday and was unable to inform the committee what is its baseline calculation for the cost of financial regulation. This figure had not been requested by the Government. I ask how one can go from 100% to 75% without knowing what 100% is.

The regulatory impact analysis in this case outlines four options. One option is to do nothing which is not really an option and neither is self-regulation an option. The third option is to use existing legislation and the fourth option is new legislation. This is not really what a regulatory impact assessment is supposed to do, in my opinion. A regulatory impact assessment is supposed to make a financial calculation as to the cost of these regulations. It may well be the case that this is an example of better regulation and of reorganising and reducing large amounts of legislation into one Bill. What should happen in a regulatory impact assessment, in my view, is a calculation as to what are the savings in the cost of regulation. If one is serious about achieving that target, this might be an example of how one can begin to do so. A financial calculation could be made by using the standard costs model to find out the net savings on the administrative burden of regulation by replacing the existing large body of regulation with this new streamlined system. More important, that calculation analyses and proves whether it really is the case that this legislation streamlines regulation and reduces administrative costs; without doing that calculation we are depending on a political statement that this is streamlining.

The regulatory impact assessment does not consider the impact of EU legislation but only the impact of the Chemicals Bill. This is probably reasonable in that the Lisbon target exists for European legislation. I have referred to the impact on business and on the manufacturing sector. The regulatory impact assessment states that the Bill will have no impact on national competitiveness and I accept this assessment. It will not have an impact on socially excluded and vulnerable groups but it will benefit the environment. It will have a positive impact for consumers and for competition because of the better information available to consumers. In terms of compliance, the only compliance burden in the Bill is the cost associated with the resources devoted to facilitating inspections and compliance checks but there is no calculation of the cost provided. This is not acceptable or adequate, in my view; a school child will know that. Where is the financial calculation of what those costs are? It also states that these costs are borne by industry in facilitating such inspections and checks under the existing health and safety and environmental legislation. I am not clear in my understanding of this aspect. It is stated that the policy objective is to minimise the administrative costs to industry but there is no calculation provided. Is it the case that industry will be paying for the inspections? Will there be a form of levy on chemicals? How is it argued in the regulatory impact assessment that the costs will be borne by industry? This may be as a result of my own ignorance but is there some form of chemicals or other levy which the industry must pay in this regard?

I have referred to the global harmonised system regulation and my concerns about what would appear to be some plans to use secondary legislation to include this in the Bill at a later stage. I would be very concerned about such a plan.

My party offers general support to this legislation which derives largely from the REACH directive, which we strongly supported in the European Parliament. I do not think this legislation will have major negative impacts on competitiveness; it may even be of benefit in terms of regulation but I would like to see proper calculations and I would like some answers on the GHS regulation in particular.

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