Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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162. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will address concerns over the proposed full producer responsibility initiatives for waste tyres; his views that the proposed full initiative will lead to increased costs for consumers and retailers; and if he will provide details on the estimated extent of these costs. [15847/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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As I indicated to the Deputy in my reply to Question No. 243 of 26 March 2015, the Producer Responsibility Initiative scheme for tyres will comprise the following main features:

- A single compliance scheme for end-of-life tyres to be operated by Repak,

- The ending of the option to “self-comply” under the Regulations,

- Formalisation of the existing recycling charge into a visible environmental management charge,

- The level of this visible environmental charge would be set by my Department and reviewed in two years,

- As part of the detailed design of the scheme, consideration by my Department, in consultation with the tyres and waste industry, as to whether the funding model is predicated upon a front-loaded or back-loaded model,

- A full audit and registration and reporting component (‘black box’) with a role for the WEEE Register Society, and

- An underpinning of the new regime, including enforcement and compliance measures, by a robust legislative base, including fixed penalty notices for certain breaches.

After almost a year of discussions with representatives of all sectors of the tyre industry in Ireland, my decision to introduce a full producer responsibility initiative in this waste stream is the appropriate response to the very serious problems which have been identified in the sector. This will require an overhaul of existing structures, but I believe that this can be achieved without distorting the tyres market in Ireland, without encouraging customers to buy tyres outside of the jurisdiction and without widespread job losses. Moreover, I believe that such a scheme could be provided for without introducing any new costs, but rather by effectively formalising the existing charge that is already applied to almost all tyre purchases.

My Department is continuing to work with industry to agree on the finer details of how the Producer Responsibility Initiative for Tyres will work. In order to bring additional focus to this work and the concerns which industry have raised, the Tyres Working Group, the industry stakeholder group working with my Department, recently decided to establish five sub-groups to examine and develop an approach and solutions on certain key issues. It is the intention of the Tyres Working Group to keep the wider tyre sector informed of both the progress and decisions made on an on-going basis.