Barry Ward (Fine Gael)
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Cuirim fáilte riomh an Aire Stáit. It is always nice to see my Dún Laoghaire colleague in the Seanad. The issue I am raising is one I know the Minister of State is very well aware of, given he has responsibility for it and he launched a public consultation on these regulations last October, as I understand it. The difficulty I have with what is happening is that those who actually use these cups in their businesses do not really know what is happening. If you look online at the proposal that is involved here, going back to last July the BBC was reporting that this levy was coming in the next couple of months. When the draft regulations were published in October, RTÉ and other media outlets in this country were reporting that it was going to happen. It kind of came as a fait accompli, yet at his stage we do not know, for example, when it is definitely happening, although the Minister of State has said that it will be early next year or by the end of this year, and we do not know exactly what it is going to cover.

Quite apart from the impact this is going to have on businesses, the reality is that, for the most part, we are talking about small businesses. Local coffee shops, small businesses, convenience shops, supermarkets and anybody who sells a hot drink in the course of the day are all going to have to take on this 20-cent levy on a disposable cup used in that context. The chances are this is going to be passed on to the consumer. There are surveys suggesting a substantial number of people - up to a quarter of people - say they will spend less on coffee because of the imposition of this levy. That is not to say levies are not important. We know in this country that it has worked very well in the context of disposable plastic bags.

I have no difficulty with the principle behind this, but the reality is the way it is being done has created, to my mind, two problems. First of all, it is affecting small local businesses in particular, usually one-off shops. I am not talking about large chains with significant capacity to deal with the issue. Those small businesses do not have certainty about what is happening. The second difficulty and the real problem I have with this is the inconsistency of it. It only applies to hot drinks. At the same time that Missy Moops café in Dún Laoghaire will be serving a latte in a disposable cup, across the road in George's Street McDonald's will be serving a Coke in a disposable cup and with the same problems, but it will not have to pay a penny. With this levy, we are putting small businesses in a disadvantageous position relative to massive large multinationals like McDonald's on the other side of the street. There is a terrible inconsistency in this project. It is not about the principle of a levy on products that encourage us to use multiple-use products and to avoid single-use products. I do not have a problem with that. The Minister of State knows that, when I was on the council with him, I put down draft by-laws in Dún Laoghaire to ban single-use plastics. I am very much in favour of that. However, when we put in place a levy like this, we need to know it is going to work and it is not going to pitch one business against the other.

The last question I want to ask is about the actual public consultation. I understand there were 2,371 responses to it. What did they say? Did they point out these problems? Is the Government going to take on board the responses to that public consultation or was this a done deal? Is it something that was already decided? If that is the case, what was the point in having the public consultation? If the Minister of State could bring clarity to this for the businesses and the people in our local community, I would be very grateful.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Ward for raising this matter which, of course, I consider a priority. Ireland's national waste policy, a Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy 2020, sets out Ireland's commitment to tackle the environmental degradation caused by single-use plastics and packaging and includes our ambition to lead EU efforts in dealing with disposable cups through the introduction of a single-use cup levy. An environmental levy on single-use hot cups, commonly referred to as the coffee cup levy, is now being introduced to incentivise people to choose reusable cups and to help reduce single-use waste. The levy will be extended to cold drink cups over time. It is a fact that millions of single-use cups are being sent to landfill or incineration every year in Ireland. The Environmental Protection Agency's latest waste characterisation study indicates coffee cups account for approximately 14,000 tonnes of non-household waste each year, which equates to around 730 million coffee cups every year.This is an entirely avoidable waste and I want to prevent it occurring by incentivise people to use reusable cups. The levy will operate in much the same way as the existing plastic bag levy that successfully transformed our use of single use plastic bags. Ireland was a world leader in introducing that levy and our use of these bags has fallen by 90% because of the relatively modest charges placed on their use. In the same way, by introducing a levy on single use cups for hot drinks, Ireland can again demonstrate positive leadership in environmental protection. Last year, following the signing of the circular economy Act, I published the draft regulations to introduce an environmental levy on single use disposable cups, together with a comprehensive regulatory impact assessment which is for public consultation. The consultation ran for a period of six weeks during October and November 2022, and provided an important opportunity for all stakeholders to make their views on this important matter known.

The consultation comprised three strands. The first strand targeted members of the public and consumers of takeaway beverages. The second strand targeted retailers or other traders who sell takeaway beverages and will be required to implement the levy. The third and final strand was targeted at all other stakeholders such as businesses operating in the cup manufacturing distribution or related industries, public sector bodies, NGOs and representative bodies.

The Department received a significant volume of responses to this consultation and 2,371 submissions in total were received across all three strands registering a wide range of views on the application of the levy. The summary consultation report was published online by the Department in December and a full report, including copies of all submissions received, will be published shortly. Submissions received are also being used to inform an SME test, recommended by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and shall be published along with the results of the consultation.

Once I have fully assessed the output from the consultation process the regulations will be finalised and submitted to Government for approval before I sign them. In finalising the regulations I will first agree a suitable commencement date with the Revenue Commissioners, as the proposed collection authority. That discussion with the Revenue Commissioners is currently under way and in any event I have committed to giving retailers at least three months from when the regulations are signed before commencement of the levy to ensure adequate preparation time. I will use that time to raise awareness of the levy among the public and among retailers. Want I want people to see is that they do not have to pay a levy because they are using reusable cups and that retailers do not have to charge the levy by providing reusable options for their customers, so it is a win-win.

Barry Ward (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State and I appreciate what he has done. I do not want to take away from the laudability of the idea behind this scheme but I want to ask three questions. Did the public consultation substantially raise the issues I have raised? I am sure others have raised these issues, particularly the discrepancy between hot and cold drinks, and I respectfully do not think it is enough to say that the cold drink levy will come in due course. Why is it not coming now? Why are we pitching one type of business against another?

Can the Minister of State at least confirm that he accepts this will hit businesses? It is not always feasible for people to have a keep cup or to avail of a reusable cup. Has the Minister of State given proper consideration to the fact we could put in place a system where there are only compostable cups that can be properly recycled? I realise recycling is not the solution and I recognise the huge numbers he is talking about. I do not have a difficulty with that but there are other ways to skin this cat and I wonder if we could do it in a way that does not hit businesses to quite the same extent.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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We will stick to our iced lattes.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I assure Senator Ward that the consultation is a genuine exercise. The point of it is that we receive submissions from people who have first-hand, domain expertise because all they do all day is sell coffee or make paper cups or whatever. It would not be right for me to design these things from a desktop point of view. I wait for what comes in and I am surprised by what comes in and then I implement that. To give Senator Ward an idea to compare with, the plastic bag exempts butchers and fishmongers because a person cannot reuse a plastic bag that fish was kept in. There have to be practical implementation details. What about hot and cold drinks? To give the example of Missy Moop’s and McDonalds on the other side of the road, if one goes into McDonalds and orders a coffee from the McCafe they will have to pay the levy. If they go into Missy Moop's and have a coca-cola they will not have to pay a levy there. This applies equally to everybody. Next year of course, cold drinks will be brought in, and later, hamburger and pizza boxes and so on.

Will this hit businesses? No, it will not. Does the plastic bag levy reduce the amount of food people eat? Of course it does not. It will not have a damaging effect on the amount of coffee consumed.Coffee is an addictive drink and people will continue to buy it in huge quantities. I do not think that cafés will have a problem. Realistically, what will happen is that someone will forget to bring his or her cup. The person will go into a café and will not have his or her KeepCup or reusable cup. There are a number of solutions, apart from paying the levy and getting the single-use cup. A number of options have emerged in other jurisdictions. There are approximately four different versions of cup-sharing schemes, whether that involves putting a deposit on a cup and getting it back later, being a member of a club, getting free coffees when one pays for a cup and so on. There are many alternatives. We will find a way through it, just as we did through the plastic bag levy, and there will be considerable benefits for all. The retailer can stop paying considerable quantities of money for these cups and the consumer will stop having to pay that secret share, because the consumer can use his or her own cup, and the price of coffee will reduce.