Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Those are both reasonable questions. At the moment, we have six approved suppliers for these machines. Most of those suppliers are the international suppliers that will be seen in any other country in the world, and this works in 40 countries so it is well tested. Some 86% of the time, the machines are available, although that means that one time in seven, they are not available. Many of the machines display a message saying they are broken when they are full or the paper needs to be changed. There really is a learning curve for retailers in maintaining these machines, which are new to them. This is the same as when people get a piece of office equipment that runs out of paper and they have to maintain it. What we are looking at is moving that reliability up to 95%, which is what we would expect to see given the experience in other European countries.

Many retailers will have more than one machine available in order that at least one of them will be working. The truth is we have had people disappointed when they arrive and the machine is not working. Six out of seven times, people are not having that experience. That is not good enough and we will do better than that. It is working for most people and I am not deaf to the complaints of people who have had a bad experience.

The next issue is the accessibility of the machines. By law, all the machines have to be accessible for everybody. The slot to put in the bottles and cans is at 1.2 m, which is the height at which it was set to be reachable from a wheelchair. Re-turn engaged with the National Disability Authority before the launch of the scheme and it is continuing to do so. It is also listening to the complaints from people with disabilities who are having difficulties using the scheme or are asking questions. It has updated the guidance for retailers to explain to people with disabilities how to use the machines better and it is convening a forum of people with disabilities, including people with lived experience of disability, to see what it can do to make the scheme work better for everybody.