Ireland should follow the example of other EU countries and accept that environmental protection cannot be achieved by regulations alone, according to the president of the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox.
Speaking in Dublin yesterday on the publication by the ESRI of Green and Bear It, a book on environmental taxation, he said many EU member states had successfully implemented incent-ives and disincentives aimed at protecting the environment.
Mr Cox said the proposed 15 per cent levy on plastic shopping bags was a "small but very real step" towards implementing the "polluter pays" principle, particularly as the revenue it would raise had been earmarked to finance other environmental projects.
Referring to the IFA's opposition to measures aimed at dealing with nitrate pollution of rivers and lakes, he said "the evidence is in on that". What was needed was not more research but resolve on the part of the authorities, he said.
Mr Cox said Ireland needed to build a national incinerator for hazardous wastes, though he knew this was a "hot issue". We could not continue to export such wastes, but should accept the responsibilities that went with economic development.
Ms Sue Scott, one of the book's authors, said it was 10 years since she had read a report by the European Parliament on environmental taxes and charges. Yet there had been very little progress here on the introduction of such fiscal measures.
"More will have to be done about the environment and it will be tough - we will have to 'green and bear it'," she said. Only transparent market-based policies could establish a link between the use of environmental resources and payment for their use.
The book points out that pollution is a by-product of economic activity and says there is a growing consensus on the need for market-based policies embodying the "polluter pays" principle.
