Consumers will have to pay a levy of up to 15 pence per bag on plastic shopping bags by the start of next year under new legislation published yesterday by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey.
The Waste Management (Amendment) Bill 2001, which is to be rushed through the Oireachtas before its Easter recess, also provides for a landfill levy, and this is likely to be passed on to householders in the form of increased charges for refuse collection.
Unusually, the estimated £100 million annual revenue from these new levies is to be "hypothecated" to create an Environment Fund, which will be used to finance a wide range of environmental initiatives, including waste recycling and litter control.
The Bill would also end any legal doubt over on-the-spot litter fines, which are to be increased from £50 to £100 - the second such doubling in a few years - in a determined effort to tackle what Mr Dempsey regards as a perennial problem.
As expected, local councillors are to be stripped of their powers to make waste management plans in the interests of speeding up the process. Their powers will be exercised instead by city or county managers, at least for an initial four-year period.
The Minister denied that these proposals represented an attack on local democracy or an attempt to "foist" waste incinerators on reluctant communities. Rather, they were prompted by "a failure by some people to take responsibility for difficult decisions". While exonerating those who had adopted waste management plans, he said progress was still being obstructed by three local authorities - Galway, Longford and Louth county councils - and this had "thrown the waste management process into disarray".
Such obstruction "can't be tolerated", he declared, especially with an "inevitable and imminent" judgment in an EU legal action against Ireland over its failure in this area. "I could not allow the current `drift' to continue. We have already lost too much time."
Under the legislation published yesterday, a county manager's decision to adopt a waste management plan would not be amenable to change by elected councillors for four years, though they would retain the power to replace it thereafter.
Denying a Green Party charge that he had "caved in" to the incineration lobby, Mr Dempsey said that even where thermal treatment plants were included in waste management plans, they would still have to go through the normal planning and licensing process.
The Bill provides powers to increase the proposed landfill levy from the initial £15 per tonne by £4 annually to a level that has yet to be determined. This is intended to reduce reliance on landfill and implement the "polluter pays" principle.
While the landfill levy would yield £15-20 million per year, the proposed levy on plastic bags - even at a low rate of 10p per bag - would raise £120 million at current rates of usage, which is estimated at 325 bags per person per year. The levy, which may be extended in future to other "problematic products", is to be collected by the Revenue from retailers, who are expected to pass it on to shoppers at checkouts. Even with its disincentive effect, it is expected to raise £80 million a year.
