Michael Fitzpatrick (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Chemicals Bill. It fulfils a commitment under the programme for Government to implement the European Union regulatory framework governing the manufacture and use of chemicals and does not impact on the competitiveness of our economy. The Bill will put in place an administrative framework for the enforcement of various pieces of EU chemicals legislation. It includes no substantive rules on chemicals because they are already contained in the EU regulations, which are directly applicable in Ireland.

The measures proposed in the Bill include the designation of national authorities, including the Health and Safety Authority, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Minister for Health and Children, and the Revenue Commissioners, to be responsible for specific areas of enforcement that draws on the most relevant expertise and areas of competence across the system. The Bill also proposes co-operation arrangements for national authorities to carry out joint enforcement activities to ensure the best use of our resources. It will minimise administrative costs to business since it provides for strong co-operation between national authorities, and it provides for authorities to share information with each other and with authorities in other EU member states. The Bill also proposes a range of enforcement powers aimed at encouraging compliance and discouraging non-compliance, including the issuing of directions for improvement plans, the issuing of contravention notices and prohibition notices, and powers to apply to the courts for orders prohibiting certain activities.

I welcome the provision in the Bill for substantial penalties, including up to a fine of €5,000 and six months' imprisonment for summary offences, a fine of €3 million and two years' imprisonment for indictable offences, and the on-the-spot fines of up to €2,000 for minor offences. I also welcome the provision for making public certain information in the interests of protecting human health or the environment. This is an important element of the bill, as is the protection of whistleblowers in the event of breaches of chemicals law being reported in good faith.

The two main policy objectives of the Bill are to achieve a high level of compliance and to minimise the administrative cost to industry. To achieve these objectives, the Bill aims to provide a clear regulatory framework for business and to increase co-operation between the various national authorities involved in enforcement. This will support high levels of compliance and should alleviate any unnecessary administrative costs to business.

A regulatory impact analysis considered the costs and benefits likely to arise from a number of options regarding the enforcement of current and pending EU chemicals regulations. The analysis concluded that the principal benefits of the Chemicals Bill should be high levels of compliance, reduced administrative costs to business, increased co-operation between the various national authorities involved in enforcement and a coherent legal framework. Industry will benefit by having a clear regulatory framework in which to operate. The Bill provides for increased co-operation among national authorities and between national authorities and authorities in other member states, and enforcing a number of different pieces of legislation under the one Bill has the potential to minimise administration costs and will be of benefit to industry. In the course of inspections, national authorities could check compliance with all legislation in the scope of the Bill at the same time, thereby saving industry time and money. Increased co-operation among national authorities and agencies, such as the HSA, the EPA, the pesticide control service and Customs and Excise, should also facilitate a greater level of information exchange and should minimise the need for individual businesses to supply the same information to a number of different bodies.

The costs associated with public health and environmental remediation would be significantly reduced by a high level of compliance with this chemicals legislation. The reputation of the State will benefit from introducing the regulatory regime. The provisions to make replacement regulations for the Seveso or control of major accident hazards regulations should result in a clearer enforcement framework. This should result in increased compliance with the regulations and a consequent lower risk of major accidents occurring. The Chemicals Bill will have no negative impact on national competitiveness. On the contrary, there should be a benefit to national competitiveness arising from the improved regulatory efficiency it aims to introduce.

Compliance with the new chemicals regime by industry should result in better management of the risks associated with the use of chemicals and therefore a positive longer-term environmental impact. A positive impact on customers and competition can be expected as the Chemicals Bill contains provisions to ensure better information on chemicals for customers. Benefits will arise from co-operation and mutual assistance arrangements among the national authorities under the Bill and competent authorities in Northern Ireland and the UK, thus having a positive impact on North-South and east-west relations. The Health and Safety Authority has already taken part in joint awareness raising and training initiatives.

The only compliance burden with this Bill is the cost of facilitating inspections and compliance checks. These are already borne by industry in facilitating inspections and checks under existing health and safety and environmental legislation. The policy objective is to minimise the administrative cost to industry. The Bill provides for compliance approaches that emphasise measures that fall short of prosecution. These include serving a direction for an improvement plan, which will require the submission within one month of an improvement plan setting out how the company proposes to address the risk that is the subject of the plan. Enforcement notices may also be served to deal with a failure to comply with the law. A contravention notice will give a period of time for the matter to be remedied, and a prohibition notice will require that the activity that has created the risk to human health or the environment is stopped immediately. The Bill also provides for application to the High Court for an order prohibiting or restricting the activity.

Deterrence approaches that are penal and use prosecutions in order to deter future breaches include provision for specification in regulations of fixed payment notices for summary offences, the prosecution of offences in either the District or Circuit Courts and the publication of the names and addresses of those subjected to a prohibition notice, High Court order or a penalty following a court conviction.

The three EU regulations being given further effect by the Bill are as follows: the EU REACH regulation, the EU regulation concerning the export and import of certain dangerous chemicals under the Rotterdam convention and the EU detergents regulation. The EU detergents and export-import regulations are currently subject to enforcement measures in different statutory instruments, which will be repealed in due course.

I congratulate the Minister on introducing the Bill, and I wish it a speedy passage through the House.

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