Minister for Finance Michael Noonan refused to sanction a sugar tax in the budget, Minister for Health James Reilly has said. 

Dr Reilly told the Seanad last year he was in favour of a sugar tax on sweetened drinks that could raise ¤50 million a year and help combat rising levels of obesity in the State. 

However, he said the move had been ruled out by Mr Noonan because sugary drinks already attracted VAT of 23 per cent while neither bottled water nor milk attract any VAT rating. 

“There is already in place VAT of 23 per cent. That is something that should be noted,” he said, though he said the use of a sugar tax would be kept under review. Speaking at the Irish College of Ophthalmologists conference yesterday, Dr Reilly said as a GP that half of the people attending his surgery who were obese did not recognise themselves as such.

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People in England used nearly eight billion plastic bags last year. Environmental campaigners say that’s up 5–percent on the year before.They’re calling for a charge to be put on plastic bags – and claim the bags can take 1,000 years to degrade and are harmful to wildlife. 

Polina Boiko spoke to Helen Bingham from the campaign group Keep Britain Tidy – and began by asking her how damaging plastic bags are to the environment. They end up as litter which isn’t very good for anyone, it isn’t good for wildlife and it’s not good for people because litter make places look uncared of. But I guess it’s extremely dangerous for marine live. We had the case just this week when a sperm whale was found dead and in its stomach had a hundred plastic carrier bags. So it’s serious threat to marine life.

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As Scotland launches consultation on plastic bag tax, reports emerge suggesting the Chancellor has scuppered plans for a UK–wide levy

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The Government levy on the use of plastic shopping bags has generated €166m for the exchequer since it was introduced 10 years ago. The levy has also led to a fall of at least a 90% in their use in Ireland. A similar tax is set to be introduced in Northern Ireland next January. The reduction in the use by shoppers of disposable plastic bags has been welcomed by environmental organisations and by retailers. A number of countries have since followed the Irish example, most notably a number of US states. 

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A LEADING environmental charity has welcomed news that a carrier bag tax is to be introduced in Northern Ireland next year.

The initial 5p levy on single-use carrier bags, due to commence in April 2013, will then double to 10p in 2014 when a 10p levy on the more durable multi-use shopping bags will also be brought in, Environment Minister Alex Attwood has said.

All single-use bags - including plastic, paper and "plant based material" bags - will be liable for the new tax.

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Plastic bags became almost a national symbol of waste and decadence thanks to BBC camerawoman Rebecca Hosking, who travelled to the remote Pacific island of Midway to film a nature documentary. As the Guardian reported at the time: "Instead of finding some prelapsarian wilderness, she and a colleague were confronted with the horror of hundreds of albatrosses lying on the sand. The great birds' stomachs had been split open by the heat and bits of plastic were spewing out between the feathers and the bones. All kinds of plastic – toys, shopping bags, asthma inhalers, pens, cigarette lighters, toothbrushes, combs, bottle tops. The birds had swallowed them and choked to death. Later, Hosking and her colleagues found humpback whales, seals and turtles, "all dead or dying from the plastic", which rolled in on every tide.

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DUNNES STORES has lost its High Court claim that the lighter plastic bags used in its stores for wrapping fish, meat and other products should not fall within the scope of the plastic bag levy.
Dunnes claimed that the levy should only apply to the plastic bags for carrying goods home given out at the checkout.
The company's appeal to the Revenue Appeals Commissioners against the tax assessments involving a disputed amount of €36.4 million had been put on hold pending the outcome of its challenge.

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However, the scheme, which was introduced at the start of October, has not been without its teething troubles, with customers complaining about the charge or trying to steal bags or baskets to avoid paying 5p a bag.

Bob Gordon, head of environment at the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said: "I think generally while some retailers have experienced a low level of aggression, generally the feedback I'm getting is that customers are accepting it.

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Retail Ireland, the body representing most of the country's largest department stores, electrical and DIY retailers and major supermarket groups, said it would oppose any packaging levy.

The group said there was no analysis to support the benefit of a stand-alone tax on packaging, which is being considered by environment minister Phil Hogan.

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Amid widespread calls for the government to introduce a levy for single-use bags, a leaked draft report by the Environmental Agency has revealed that plastic bags are generally less damaging to the climate than cotton ‘bags for life' and paper bags that are used as a low impact alternative.

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The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to ban plastic grocery bags in areas of the county under its jurisdiction, endorsing a broadly worded measure that proponents hope could become a model for California.

The ban, which goes beyond ordinances adopted in Malibu and San Francisco, most directly affects 1.1 million people who live outside the county's incorporated cities. But anyone shopping at stores in such areas would encounter the new rules.

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Ciarán Cuffe described as "outrageous" the public service obligation (PSO) subsidy which is given to airlines for regional routes which are not considered commercially viable. "It is my strong view and my party's view that the days of PSO need to come to an end," he told a forum on future transport fuel, organised by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, at Trinity College Dublin.

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Shoppers who don't bring their own totes to a store would have to purchase paper bags made of at least 40 percent recycled material for a minimum of 5 cents or buy reusable bags under the proposal, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2012. A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he supports the bill, which will be voted on in the Assembly this week and could go to a Senate vote this year.

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For many shoppers in the District of Columbia, the nickel fee has been an impetus to cut back on previously free store bags that all too often wind up in the trash -- or littering nearby streams and trees.

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That quotation is from a 2005 "extended impact assessment" commissioned by the Scottish government, and it echoes studies undertaken in South Africa and France.

The Scottish life-cycle analysis, detailing "cradle-to-grave" effects, showed that taxing paper as well as plastic bags would reduce the consumption of water, emissions of greenhouse gases, eutrophication (too many nutrients consuming oxygen) of rivers and lakes, atmospheric acidification, and the formation of ground-level ozone. Paper bags cause more damage to the environment in these categories than plastic.

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This was the message of Friends of the Irish Environment when it wrote to the government this week.

It pointed out that paper bags too have an environmental impact, in many ways worse than those of plastic bags.

The group quoted a Scottish life cycle analysis study, which shows the damaging effects of paper bags in their manufacture as well as in the waste stream.

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The EU has long maintained that emission trading must form a central part of global efforts to combat climate change. This week it received fresh support from a hitherto unexpected quarter: America.

In his first speech to congress on Tuesday, new US president Barack Obama called on US lawmakers to propose a greenhouse gas emission trading scheme (ETS) for America. "I ask this congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America," Mr Obama said.

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