Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 339: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he will clarify, in the wake of comments made by the Tánaiste on the Order of Business in Dáil Éireann on 13 October 2005, whether a refundable deposit on beverage containers such as bottles and cans would be in breach of or affected by the packaging directive; the way in which this equates with refundable deposit systems being in operation in several other EU member states; his views on the success of bottle bills in several US states, and refundable schemes in the aforementioned EU countries and worldwide; the progress which has been made for introducing money-back bottles and cans or a related credit or voucher system following the raising of this matter by this Deputy in 2003 and the Minister of State's indication that the matter would receive consideration. [29613/05]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Directive 94/62/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on packaging and packaging waste is based on the concept of producer responsibility, which effectively requires producers to contribute to the waste management costs of products which they have placed on the market at end-of-life. Under the directive, Ireland was required to achieve a 25% recovery rate of packaging waste by 1 July 2001, increasing to a 50% recovery rate by 31 December 2005. Practical implementation of the directive in Ireland is organised mainly through a collective industry based compliance scheme operated by Repak Limited which is working successfully. In 2001 it met the target of 25% packaging waste recycling required by the directive.

Ireland is on course to meet the higher recovery and recycling targets specified for end-2005. The Environmental Protection Agency has reported in its national waste database interim report for 2003, published in December 2004, that packaging waste recovery increased to 44% in that year, up from 35% in 2002.

While Article 15 of Directive 94/62/EC allows member states to adopt economic measures, such as deposit and refund schemes, in support of the objectives of the directive, successful deposit and refund schemes operating internationally for beverage containers are generally located in those countries where there has been no break in the continuity and cultural tradition of deposit and refund arrangements. This is not the case in Ireland and there would now quite likely be significant costs involved in re-establishing deposit and refund arrangements here. Account would also have to be taken of the possible impact on existing compliance arrangements. Given that these arrangements are achieving the desired result for meeting the recycling targets, the introduction of deposit and refund schemes for beverage containers is not under consideration.