Dáil Éireann

DÁIL ÉIREANN AN COISTE UM FHORMHAOIRSIÚ BUISÉID COMMITTEE ON BUDGETARY OVERSIGHT Dé Céadaoin, 31 Bealtaine 2017 Wednesday, 31 May 2017 Tháinig an Comhchoiste le chéile ag 2 p.m. The Select Committee met at 2 p.m. Comhaltaí a bhí i láthair / Members present: Teachtaí Dála / Deputies Colm Brophy, Thomas P. Broughan, Dara Calleary, John Lahart, Michael McGrath, Eamon Ryan. Teachta / Deputy John Paul Phelan sa Chathaoir / in the Chair. 1 SBO Business of Select Committee Chairman: We will commence the meeting in public session. Apologies have been received from Deputies Barrett, Deering and Pearse Doherty. The committee went into private session at 2.02 p.m. and resumed in public session at 2.12 p.m. Pre-Budget Submissions (Resumed): The Environmental Pillar Chairman: I welcome Ms Mindy O’Brien, co-ordinator of VOICE Ireland, and Mr. Oisín Coghlan, executive director of Friends of the Earth, who will be making a pre-budget submission. Before we begin, I remind witnesses and members to turn off their mobile phones as they interfere with the recording and broadcasting of the meeting. I bring to the attention of witnesses that they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence that they give to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected to the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the longstanding parliamentary practice to the effect that members should not comment on or criticise or make charges against either a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I invite Ms O’Brien to make her opening submission. Ms Mindy O’Brien: I thank the Chairman and members. I represent the Environmental Pillar, which is a national network of 26 environmental organisations. We have three proposals that we would like to bring forward and they reflect the four priorities the Government has embraced, namely, waste prevention, the circular economy, the polluter-pays principle and the UN sustainable development goals, particularly goal No. 12, which deals with sustainable consumption and production. The bonus is that all three proposals would bring money into the environmental fund. I will discuss the environmental fund briefly. It was established in 2002 and was funded through the plastic bag levy and landfill levies. At its height it yielded approximately €264 million and has now dwindled down to €46 million. We have been the victim of our own success. We have changed human behaviour, which is great. As people are not using plastic bags any more, we are not getting revenue from them. Additionally, landfill levies are down. We would like to see that the levies we are proposing would go into the environmental fund. The environmental fund is used to fund the enforcement office of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, research and development by the agency and its waste prevention office, as well as anti-litter campaigns, environmental awareness and the environmental network. 2 31 MAY 2017 First, I will talk about waste prevention. I would like to tell the committee a little story. I work with my local GAA club. We do coffee and tea every Saturday and sell the coffee for a euro. We had ceramic cups but all of a sudden we started to use disposable ones. I asked people if they would pay 15 cent for the disposable cups and started charging them. Within two hours I had over 50% of the people take the ceramic cups to avoid that 15 cent charge. However, one father came up to me to say he was really good at recycling at home and did not need to do it when he was out and about. That reflects the society that we live in, whereby we are all getting used to recycling at home and separating our waste but do not do it when we are out and about. We do not bring our waste home and it ends up as litter on the street or on beaches all around, or in the bins and it is just burned. The plastic bag tax shows that economic incentives work. As an illustration of the amount of litter we are accumulating, spring cleans took place recently in Kerry and Limerick. They did a waste characterisation study and found that of the 160 tonnes they captured, 300,000 coffee cups were gathered. That is in just one week in two county councils. We propose to put a levy on single-use, non-compostable items such as coffee cups, plastic clam shells, takeaway containers and plastic cutlery. This would encourage people not to use them and to prevent waste. We also propose a deposit refund scheme for bottles and cans because they are not easily replaced. It is not easy to go into a shop and refill a bottle of Coke. We propose a 10 cent deposit on those bottle and cans, which would be refunded once returned. This is a great way to capture that material. The second initiative which supports the circular economy is our proposal for a €2.50 levy per tonne on aggregates. The UK currently imposes a £2 levy on aggregates. It has created an imbalance between the North and the South. I note the Dáil is currently considering the Miner- als Act and creating an omnibus Bill dealing with how to set royalties. There are no royalties with aggregates. Nothing is brought into the national coffers by this non-renewable resource. The problem with quarrying is that it de-waters aquifers, leaves sedimentation in streams and rivers, causes dust and vibrations to communities and increases damage to the roads from heavy trucks. There are many external costs which are not accounted for by the quarries. We also propose this to promote the circular economy. In the UK, 25% of construction and demolition waste is recycled. Here it is only 1%. This levy would encourage the development of a new recycling industry. In Ireland we produce about 32 million tonnes of aggregate a year, which we feel would bring in about €80 million. The third issue is the polluter-pays principle. Diesel fuel has been identified as a lead- ing emitter of greenhouse gas and pollution and this air pollution has caused 1,200 premature deaths in Ireland. This link between air pollution and premature death was identified during the smoky coal ban for Dublin back in the 1990s, adapted for the rest of the country in 2015. The benefit received by diesel should be removed. Diesel is charged at 11 cent less than petrol. We in Ireland are increasingly purchasing diesel cars because they are cheaper to run. This is bucking the trend throughout Europe. Purchases of diesel cars have gone down in most coun- tries. Belgium, France and the UK have equalised excise tax between petrol and diesel. We are calling for such an equalisation. The Asthma Society supports and recommends this, as do the OECD and the EU semester programme. This proposal also embraces the polluter-pays principle. Lastly, Ireland signed up to the UN sustainable development goals. Goal No. 12 deals with sustainable consumption and production and our three proposals fall well within that goal. I thank the committee and am open to questions. 3 SBO Deputy Dara Calleary: I welcome representatives from the Environmental Pillar. Unfor- tunately they are here on a day when it seems that President Trump is about to declare environmental war on the world by pulling out of the Paris Agreement. Ms Mindy O’Brien: I apologise on behalf of all Americans. Deputy Dara Calleary: It actually makes our discussion more relevant. I have a number of questions on the aggregates levy. At present there is a serious issue with pyrite around the country. It was confined to Dublin for some time but is beginning to emerge all over the country. Would the proposed levy assist in dealing with that and in ensuring that it does not happen again? Ms Mindy O’Brien: No, it would not. As I understand it, the regulation of quarries is very light-handed and is done by local authorities. There is supposed to be a register of quarries. The EPA has a list but there are no data on each quarry in terms of how much it produces and so forth. This is something we need to examine. I am not an expert on pyrite but quarries certainly merit further investigation. Deputy Dara Calleary: Obviously the diesel equalisation policy will have the biggest impact on our agricultural sector, which is already facing enormous challenges as a result of Brexit. What would that equalisation cost the agricultural sector? What effect would it have on jobs in that sector? Ms Mindy O’Brien: Agriculture accounts for approximately 5% of the diesel purchased here. We recognise the challenges facing that sector and have not called for the removal of the agricultural subsidy on green diesel. Deputy Dara Calleary: The representatives are benign on green diesel, even as an anti- smuggling measure. Is that correct? Ms Mindy O’Brien: We are not making any comment on the smuggling issue.

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