Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State who seems to have got into the habit of coming to the Seanad recently. I listened to his words, understand his view and support what he is trying to do. I hope the Bill which will implement EU regulations on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances, as well as other parts of the REACH directive, will bring legislation up to date and thus have the potential to create new business opportunities.

I am pleased the Minister of State has indicated that the legislation will not impose additional obligations on industry. I listened to Senator Phelan and agree that we should do our utmost to avoid placing unnecessary burdens on businesses, particularly in the areas of red tape and regulation. This stifles business in general and entrepreneurship, in particular. We talk a great deal about avoiding regulation but doing it is difficult because every time something goes wrong people call for more regulation. This has happened in the banking sector and one can understand why, but more regulation means stifling the entrepreneurship we must encourage.

I understand the Minister of State is committed to reducing the regulatory burden on business by 25% by 2012. I visited Panama a number of years ago and people there told me they had set themselves a target of being a country that would encourage new businesses to set up. The countries with which they were competing were Singapore, Hong Kong and one or two others and they set about having the shortest time period for someone who wanted to set up a new business and they achieved it. It now takes only seven hours to complete the paperwork to set up a new business in Panama. While I am sure they have put regulations aside in some areas, they have achieved their target. What does the Minister of State think of introducing a sustainable employment test to block new regulations that would cost jobs? We may be more constrained when it comes to EU regulations, to which Panama would not be subject, but all new proposals should be subjected to a rigorous audit, a matter to which Senator Phelan also referred.

We should give businesses a chance to highlight where regulation has been poorly designed and suggest ways to improve it. In that regard, there was a recent Government initiative to get rid of legislation more than 100 years old. What about legislation passed in more recent times? Perhaps we need a system to reconsider all legislation hindering business and job creation. A number of years ago it was suggested all legislation should be reviewed after five or ten years. Is there a chance this will happen?

Some countries are much more emphatic about encouraging entrepreneurship and new businesses. I was interested to note that although the French Government had announced a carbon tax and was ready to impose it, the plan was dropped because it would have made French business uncompetitive if competing countries did not also have such a tax. As the proposed French tax did not arise from a European regulation, it was possible to drop it. However, we must be careful. We want to be good Europeans and adhere to EU regulations, but we must be aware of the challenges to businesses, particularly entrepreneurial and innovative businesses. Businesses must be aware of the new regulations. This month it was reported that it was estimated that a significant number of French manufacturers ran the risk of missing the 30 November deadline for companies to register substances of which they produced or imported more than 1,000 tonnes per year and all hazardous products, as they were unaware that the law applied to them. We may have this problem when it comes to the next deadline of 31 May 2013 for registration of substances of which companies produce or import more than 100 tonnes per year. Does the Minister foresee any problems with compliance with the REACH directive on that basis?

My experience is in the retail business, about which I will talk for a few minutes. The REACH directive is designed to gradually phase out potentially damaging chemicals from public use. However, it may often be forgotten that it also sets out transparency requirements to give customers the right to know if a hazardous chemical is actually contained in a product. A report published last month by the European Environmental Bureau, EEB, found that major European retailers such as Carrefour and Tesco were exposing their shoppers to harmful chemicals in consumer products such as children's pencil cases and shoes. The study found that many products contained high concentrations of chemicals listed as "substances of very high concern", SVHC, which are highly dangerous to human health as they have been proved to be carcinogenic and toxic. The report also states other retailers are breaching the law by failing to provide basic information on hazardous chemical content. Since 2008, consumers should have been able to get the name of a listed substance, with information on how to use it safely, within 45 days of the request and free of charge. However, half of the 158 information requests sent to European retailers by the EEB between April and August this year received no response. The report wanted to test the willingness of retailers to provide information. It also discovered that only 22% of the requests had received satisfactory answers that met the minimum legal requirements under the REACH regulations. The EEB states all citizens ought to be given full information on the properties of chemicals in the products they buy. A parent, for instance, should automatically be informed whether a pencil case for his or her child contains phthalates which can impair sexual development. Estimates suggest at least 2,000 substances currently fulfil the "substances of very high concern" criteria. However, nine years since the first evaluation and more than three years after implementation of the REACH directive, only 38 substances are officially considered as SVHC. The report warns that "the right to know is, therefore, severely limited in practice due to absence of political initiative".

Can the Government do more to protect the citizen and the customer from harmful chemical substances? Should companies have a process in place for staff to respond to information requests and should there be a grater effort to track harmful chemicals in the supply chain? I would like to hear the Minister of State's view on this aspect of the REACH directive.

The steps the Minister of State has taken are the correct ones. The Bill seems to be very involved when one first reads it but not when one gets into it and realises the steps we have taken. The Bill shows how necessary it is for us to be kept up to date and keep up to date if we are to adhere to the regulations which are very worthy but present problems on occasions. Regulations can make it less attractive for European manufacturers to compete on the world stage. Let us make sure that in trying to protect citizens we do not make ourselves uncompetitive.