Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 231: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the amount of income generated from the plastic bag levy over the past five years; the number of bags that were purchased under the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17514/10]

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 232: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government how the income generated from the plastic bag levy over the past five years has been used; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17515/10]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 231 and 232 together.

Revenues from the levies on plastic shopping bags and the landfill of waste are paid into a 'ring-fenced' Environment Fund, established under the Waste Management (Amendment) Act 2001, and can only be used for activities that are of benefit to the environment. Section 74(9) of the Waste Management Act 1996 (as inserted by section 12 of the Waste Management (Amendment) Act 2001), specifies the purposes for which payments may be made from the Environment Fund. These include assistance in a range of areas such as: - schemes to prevent/reduce waste; - waste recovery activities; - research & development into waste management; - production, distribution or sale of products deemed to be less harmful to the environment than other similar products; - development of producer initiatives to prevent/reduce waste arising from their activities; - implementation of waste management plans; - enforcement of the provisions of any enactment relating to waste management, prevention of litter or protection of the environment; - partnership projects, that involve local authorities, to improve the quality of the environment for particular local communities; - promotion of awareness of the need to protect the environment, including national and regional campaigns; - promotion /support of education and training to assist achievement of campaign objectives; - resources (human or material) to enable education and training to be carried out; - initiatives undertaken by community groups and others for protection of the environment; - such other purposes for protection of the environment as may be prescribed by the Minister in regulations.

The Waste Management (Environment Fund)(Prescribed Payments) Regulations 2003 extend these purposes to include - - initiatives undertaken in the State, or on an international or transnational basis relating to the protection of the environment; and - sustainable development initiatives, including areas such as research and development together with contributions to international organisations.

Details of expenditure from the Fund are available in the Fund's audited Annual Accounts. Copies of the Annual Accounts from 2002 to 2008 are available from the Oireachtas library and on my Department's website at http://www.environ.ie/en/Environment/Waste/EnvironmentFund/. The 2009 Annual Accounts will be published in due course after they have been audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

In the period from its introduction on 17 July 2001 until the end of 2008, a total of €125,263,842 was paid into the Environment Fund in respect of the plastic bag levy; €101,952,021 of these receipts arose in the five years 2004 to 2008. The exact number of plastic bags to which levy receipts in any given period equates cannot be determined precisely, as the amounts remitted into the Fund also include interest on late payments. However, receipts indicate that per capita usage of disposable plastic bags has decreased by more than 90%, from approximately 328 bags per head of population prior to the introduction of the levy, to 27 bags per head of population in 2008.