The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, has said he is open to the imposition of a compulsory charge on chewing gum makers instead of a levy on individual packets of gum.
The development marks a shift in the Government's stance on the funding required to clean chewing gum from the streets since the departure from the environment portfolio of Mr Martin Cullen.
While Mr Cullen favoured a 15-cent tax on packets of chewing gum, the new Minister said yesterday that he did not like "nanny state" solutions to problems such as litter.
He has now raised the prospect of a "negotiated contribution" from the industry, instead of a point-of-sale levy similar to the levy on plastic bags.
Mr Roche said he had discussed this in a meeting yesterday with representatives from the gum industry.
The meeting is part of a Government consultation process on measures to reduce chewing gum litter, which results in millions of euro being spent in clean-up operations every year.
"If they want to come to a negotiated arrangement agreement, I will certainly listen to anything they have to say. It would have be a substantial arrangement."
Mr Roche said it was estimated that a levy on packets of gum would raise up to €4.5 million for the Government.
"I certainly wouldn't think they're going to be able to do it cheaper than that," he said.
In such a scenario, the industry would have to promise to make payments for a finite period.
The system would be subject to review and the achievement of certain goals set out by the Government.
While he declined to say whether he favoured a negotiated settlement, Mr Roche said his objective was to develop the "most practical" system.
The Minister said the plastic bag levy was designed to discourage the public from using plastic bags.
By contrast, the objective of a levy on chewing gum would not be to discourage chewing gum use but to discourage people from disposing of gum on the streets.
He was concerned that gum users would continue to litter the streets with gum after a levy was imposed because they might think the problem was being dealt with through the levy.
If the money collected from a levy was used only to fund the cleaning of streets, he believed it would not encourage people to change their behaviour.
"We do need to approach the problem in a holistic way and we do need to change attitudes," he said.
Mr Roche said it was impossible to specify the cost to the State of cleaning gum from the streets, but said individual local authorities in towns and cities were spending hundreds of thousands in cleaning costs.
