Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his statement. A lot of ground has been covered and issues discussed that I wanted to raise with him.

One of the issues is the deposit return scheme. While it is certainly good to have that scheme in place and it is very welcome, people have come to me to say they went with 25 bottles, put them through the machine, but it only took six of them and they had to bring them home. They could not see the difference between one bottle and the other. There are issues there. When people ask for help in the shop, nobody really knows about it or is able to help. There are spaces that need improvement. I fully accept this is a new scheme that will take time to bed in. In a general way, however, we have to look back. We have come a long distance from where we were years ago and massive improvements have been made. That has to be acknowledged.

I will mainly deal with one issue. I look around at all the screens in the room. Most of those screens will probably burn out in a few years' time and will not be replaced. The parts in them will not be replaced. I imagine the big screens behind us cost a couple of thousand euro each. It is the same in every house in the country. I had an experience a couple of years ago where we had a fridge-freezer that started to make noise. I pulled it out from the wall, plugged it out, turned the phone light on and found a little piece of plastic from the small fan at the bottom that had broken off and fallen down. It was a small fan that cooled the gas. That was the job it had to do. The fan was running, but part of it had broken off so it was not balanced anymore and was, therefore, making noise. I rang the people we bought the fridge from. I got onto guys who are geniuses at this kind of thing and who get bits to fix things. Nobody could find anywhere to get this particular piece of the fan. I went on Google and everywhere else to try to find whether it was possible to buy the part. It was not possible. Within a couple of months, that fridge was taken away and a brand-new one put in its place, all for the sake of a little piece of plastic, probably two inches long, which broke off. It brought home to me that manufacturers have, up to now, been producing goods they do not want to last for long and in fact want them to break.

The reason I used the example of the fridge is my mother had one of those big white fridges with big heavy doors. Those fridges were made in Czechoslovakia, if I remember rightly. It was probably 50 years old and it still worked. I do not know where it is now. That difference is something we have to get to grips with. Items that have a short life are continually being produced. I know we have to get people fixing things. The key to it is, yes, get people fixing things but, first of all, we have to get the people who make them to make them to last. That is one of the issues we need to deal with. I am interested in what proposals we have in that regard. I understand this is a much bigger than an Irish issue. Many of these products are not made here but elsewhere. What are we doing to ensure such products will last?