Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

During the Second Stage debate, I mentioned that I intended to amend the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 to allow the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to consider applications for integrated pollution control and industrial emissions licences that are subject to the provisions of section 181 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and that I intended to address that issue by way of amendment on Seanad Committee Stage. Amendment No. 125 makes provision for the EPA to accept and to process licence applications in line with existing provisions under subsections 181(2)(a) and 181(2A) of the Planning and Development Act, which currently it is unable to do. Section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 sets out the requirements to which the EPA must adhere when assessing an application for a licence or a review of a licence. In order to accept a licence application for an activity that involves development which requires a grant of permission under the Planning and Development Act 2000, an application for planning permission or a specified approval must have been made or a grant of permission or specified approval under the Planning and Development Act 2000 must be in place. Section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 does not refer to the new provisions of section 181 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 that were inserted in 2021. Amendments are required to ensure that the EPA can examine a licence application and, if that application is successful, grant a licence or a revised licence in accordance with the new provisions of the Planning and Development Act 2000. These changes are simply to update and to align the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 with the amendments made to the Planning and Development Act 2000. The intention is to amend the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 in order that an application for approval under section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 will also include an application for approval under section 181(2A) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. Similarly, it is intended to amend the definition of "grant of permission" in section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 to include an order signed under section 181(2)(a) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. Without these amendments, those making temporary electricity generation proposals now being prepared to progress through section 181 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 would not legally be able to apply for or to obtain the necessary environmental licence in order to operate. The amendment I seek to make is an enabling one and will allow for the seamless linking of licence application and process, as envisaged in the 2021 changes made to the Planning and Development Act 2000. The full independence of the EPA in determining whether to grant or to refuse licence applications is not affected by this amendment. The EPA remains fully independent in that function and there is no statutory role for a Government Minister in that regard.

Amendment No. 126 creates a new Part in the Electricity Regulation Act to transpose the requirement in Article 59.1(b) of the internal market in electricity directive to give the Commission for Regulation of Utilities the power to ensure compliance by market participants that are not electricity undertakings with their obligations under the directive. These market participants include smaller actors in the electricity market, including citizen energy communities that are not engaged in the activity as their main business or economic activity.Therefore, it is not appropriate to subject these actors to the more onerous licensing regime already in existence for electricity undertakings. This a significant new development in the Irish electricity regulatory framework, creating a regulatory framework for the participation of new actors in the electricity market and is an essential step in providing new ways for customers and a greater diversity of actors, including citizen energy communities, to participate in the market via electricity activities, including generating and trading electricity, aggregation, demand response and energy storage. Therefore, this is an important component in building resilience in the electricity market in Ireland and will help to accelerate the decarbonisation and democratisation of the market. By doing so, this new framework acts upon the European Commission’s call to speed up the transposition of the internal market for electricity directive which is the subject of a letter of formal notice and which is designed to effectively allow consumers to participate in energy markets as set out in the European Commission’s recent communication RePowerEU, which sets out the Commission’s response to the war in Ukraine.

There is a double urgency to transform Europe's energy system, namely, to end the EU's dependence on Russian fossil fuels and to tackle the climate crisis. The shift away from fossil fuels towards renewables is part of the circular transition as provided for in the circular economy strategy. The strategy is a key addition to Government’s drive to achieve a 51% reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to get on a path to reach net-zero emissions no later than 2050. The less we use non-renewable material resources like fossil fuels, the more circular and less resource-intensive the economy becomes.

Amendment No. 2 provides for the immediate commencement of these provisions on the enactment of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 75, 101, 118, 121 and 127 provide for a change in the Long and Short Titles to the Bill to the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill to take account of these changes.

In regard to Senator O'Reilly's disallowed amendment regarding flimsy plastic cups, the Senator has addressed an important issue which has been part of public debate in recent weeks. My Department is aware of the concerns from both retailers and cup manufacturers that the flimsy plastic cups to which the Senator refers could become a feature of the market and be provided to customers at no charge which could be a way to avoid the levy. Such a scenario could result in increased plastic waste. This would be a bad environmental outcome and not one that the public and any environmentally responsible business would want to see. This amendment would close that potential loophole. I will look at introducing a reworded amendment on Report Stage to deal with that concern.