Waste Management (Amendment) Act, 2001

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Power to impose landfill levy.

11.—The following section is inserted after section 72 (inserted by this Act) of the Act of 1996:

“73.—(1) The Minister may, after consultation with any Minister of the Government concerned, make regulations providing that there shall be chargeable, leviable and payable a levy (which shall be known as a ‘landfill levy’ and is in this section referred to as the ‘levy’) in respect of—

(a) the carrying on of a specified class or classes of waste disposal activity (being an activity referred to in paragraph 1 or 5 of the Third Schedule), or

(b) the disposal by means of a waste disposal activity referred to in paragraph 1 or 5 of the Third Schedule, or a specified class or classes of such activity, of a specified class or classes of waste, or

(c) subject to subsection (2), both the carrying on of an activity referred to in paragraph (a) and an activity referred to in paragraph (b).

(2) Regulations under subsection (1)(c) shall not result in levy being payable twice in respect of a particular disposal of a particular quantity of waste.

(3) The amount of the levy shall be specified in the regulations under subsection (1) but shall not exceed an amount of £15, or, in the case of levy payable on or after 1 January 2002, €19, for each tonne of waste disposed of.

(4) Subject to subsection (3), regulations under subsection (1) may specify, as respects the amount of the levy payable under them, different such amounts by reference to different activities referred to in any of paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of subsection (1) in respect of which the levy is so payable.

(5) The levy shall be payable by the person who carries on the waste disposal activity concerned.

(6) Regulations under subsection (1) shall—

(a) provide that the levy (not being levy chargeable by virtue of those regulations on the local authority) shall be payable to the local authority in whose functional area the waste disposal activity concerned is carried on, and

(b) confer on that local authority powers with respect to the collection and recovery of the levy (and, for this purpose, the regulations may adapt, with or without modifications, the provisions of any enactment relating to the estimation, collection and recovery of, or the inspection of records or the furnishing of information in relation to, any tax charged or imposed by that enactment).

(7) (a) Regulations under subsection (1) may, for the purpose mentioned in paragraph (b), restrict the extent to which a local authority may exercise a power to make a charge for the provision by it of any service in circumstances where, in the opinion of the Minister, such exercise is so as to enable the local authority to recoup amounts paid by it by way of levy.

(b) The purpose mentioned in paragraph (a) is ensuring that the exercise of the power referred to in that paragraph does not result in one or more categories of person paying a disproportionate amount of the total amount of charges a local authority could reasonably be expected to make in respect of the provision of services in the circumstances concerned.

(c) For so long as regulations under subsection (1) restrict the exercise of the power referred to in paragraph (a), the enactment that confers that power shall be construed as if there were contained in it a provision the effect of which is to restrict the exercise of the power in the manner provided by the said regulations.

(8) Regulations under subsection (1) may provide, in relation to levy under this section, for all the matters which regulations under section 72 may, by virtue of paragraphs (a), (c), (d) and (g) to (l) of subsection (6) of that section, provide in relation to levy under that section and those paragraphs shall, accordingly, apply for the purposes of this section with any necessary modifications (including such modifications as will enable like provision with respect to the payment into the Environment Fund of amounts received by a local authority on account of levy under this section to be made with respect to levy under this section chargeable on the local authority itself).

(9) The Minister may make an order once, and once only, in each financial year, beginning with the financial year following the financial year in which the Waste Management (Amendment) Act, 2001, is passed, amending subsection (3) by substituting for the amount standing specified in that subsection for the time being a greater amount, not being an amount that is greater than that amount by €5.

(10) A person who fails to—

(a) pay levy which is due and payable by virtue of regulations under subsection (1), or

(b) comply with a provision of regulations under that subsection,

shall be guilty of an offence.”.