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

The Senator was asking why we should put a limit on the amount, or maybe lower and upper bounds. The reason I am doing that is so that the Minister is not given too much power. I do not want a situation in which the Minister could put a levy of €100 on a cup of coffee, which would make no sense. What we are creating is an executive power for the Minister to, following public consultation, issue a levy on an item that is bad for the environment, but there should be some limit. Senator Ward is a barrister and will understand this better than me. The executive powers that we create for Ministers in the future should not be huge and unlimited. They need to have some kind of checks and balances on them. They could be reversed by the courts where they are found to be too powerful. What we have done is introduce a maximum charge of €1. This will allow for many years of inflation, I hope, before we reach that type of level. If we did reach a point at which we needed a new levy, when a levy of €1 is not enough on a single-use item, the Oireachtas could amend the legislation and change the amount. That is a frequent pattern in legislation in that fixed amounts are put in for maximum rates.

Regarding the proposal to introduce a 1 cent levy, such a levy would obviously have zero effect on behaviour. If we put a 1 cent levy on everything, it would collect a lot of money but it would have no effect on behaviour. As a result, I do not accept amendment No. 36 because I am willing to work through the regulations and examine the exemptions at that time.

Amendments Nos. 3, 4, 7, 34, 35, 37 to 40, inclusive, and 43 cumulatively appear to refocus the Bill on plastic single-use items rather than single-use items as a whole. Achieving a circular transition is a much broader issue than just plastic. The purpose of the levy is to influence people's behaviour away from single-use items, and not just plastic items, in all areas of our daily life. Therefore, I do not accept the amendments.

More than 22,000 disposable cups end up in landfill or incineration every hour in Ireland. That amounts to more than 200 million cups per year. This figure includes cups that are recyclable. The objective of the policy is to reduce the annual consumption of all types of disposable cups and, subsequently, other forms of single-use disposable packing by inducing people to change their behaviour and switch to using reusable cups. The objective of the levy is to change behaviour and prevent the use of single-use items in the first place and the continuous unnecessary use of resources that are required to go into the production and disposal of single-use items.

I am willing to meet with Cup Print or any other company that might be negatively affected by the regulations. When we are developing the regulations, I am willing to meet with any cafe operators or market participants who want to discuss how these measures will affect them. The Finnish paper mill, Huhtamaki, which owns Cup Print, has made a lot of money out of paper straws. It did not make any complaints about that when we switched to paper straws. It has been a profitable transition for the company. There are gains and losses, but what will not continue in the future is business as usual. There will be many opportunities for change in the green economy, as well as many opportunities to make money through different kinds of products.

Amendment No. 42 provides for the lowering of the minimum rate of the levy. We saw with the plastic bag levy that eventually the levy amount was too low to affect behaviour. Plastic bag usage started to go up again and the levy needed to be raised slightly. We saw a direct correlation between the size of the levy and the amount of usage of that product. A 1 cent levy is too low. I refer to the experience of other European countries. The plastic bag levy in Lithuania and Latvia was set at 1 cent and 2 cent respectively. Data shows that these small levies had a small effect, if any, on consumer behaviour. They may have succeeded in collecting money but they did not succeed in changing behaviour. That is the reason I will stick with a 20 cent levy.

Regarding the experiences in Italy, the UK and other countries that have brought in plastic taxes, we have looked at those jurisdictions. Rather than trying to tackle single-use items, they are particularly focused on plastic. I have asked the Department to look at whether a plastic tax is appropriate in Ireland having regard to the plastic taxes in operation in other countries. When such a tax is brought in, it increases the value of recycled plastic. We are seeing a lot of plastic material being exported from Ireland to those countries where it has become a valuable commodity. We will look at those jurisdictions, but we are trying to achieve two targets: the removal of single-use items and a reduction in plastic use.