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

I thank the Cathaoirleach for acknowledging the progress made on the circular economy and the contributions of my predecessor, who laid much of the groundwork for what I have done.

I will start with the hot school meals. The hot school meals programme is a very good thing. It is widely acknowledged to be a positive thing that children can have hot meals at school, particularly in winter. However, since the programme was launched, concerns have been raised about the nutritional value of the food provided and the use of single-use materials and packaging to deliver the food. I refer particularly to concerns recently raised in the media. Schools are clearly facing challenges in that they may not have commercial kitchens. It is difficult for them to carry out any kind of food processing or kitchen activity, even reheating, so the food is delivered in such a way as to allow it to be unpacked with everything then thrown away afterwards.

I met with schoolchildren from a number of primary schools in Cabra recently. They described to me their problems with the scheme. They pointed out that they got a plastic bottle of water with each meal so each child could be getting two plastic bottles a day. Meanwhile, the drinking fountains in the school were not working. That is obviously an issue. They also pointed out that the portion sizes were uniform regardless of whether food was being served to a five-year-old or a 12-year-old. That is obviously also an issue. It is much better that the scheme is there than not there but we must now take the experience, criticisms and suggestions of the users, the children, to make the scheme better. They were full of suggestions. I will talk to the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and her Department about this. They should see whether the guidelines for the scheme can be improved.

Some schools are not using as much single-use packaging as others. The scheme is not uniform. Like many Department of Education schemes, there is a good deal of independence in the way the scheme is administered. Schools are given a degree of independence in choosing how they spend the money and where they obtain the food. There probably is best practice there.

The Deputy asked about Government guidelines in this area. The Government has new green procurement guidelines and an action plan. There is a section on food procurement. Although it was very recently published and will not apply to existing contracts, there is a new school year coming up. While I do not want to give me and my Department extra work, it would be a good idea for me to co-ordinate with the Department of Education on producing a simple and accessible guide for schools as to how to procure their hot school meals in a way that is good for the environment and does not result in a lot of food waste. I also heard from the children that as much as 50% of the food is not being eaten in some schools. Of course, all parents will be used to lunch boxes coming back with uneaten sandwiches, so uneaten food is not a new thing with children. However, there is obviously an issue if the food is not being eaten in this instance. It was suggested that there should be different portion sizes for different ages of children. That is what I will say on hot school meals.

In the context of disposable vapes, I have no problem with the idea of people using vaping to get away from a cigarette addiction. The problem really began to occur about three years ago, during the pandemic, when a new type of vape that had everything in one and that was not refillable, reusable or rechargeable became popular. Rather than having a cartridge and a rechargeable battery, you simply used the vape for a day or two and then threw it away. The result is tens of millions of vapes ending up in the countryside as litter. They contain lithium ion batteries and electronics. It is obviously wrong that this should happen. They are also extremely popular with teenagers. There has been an increase in nicotine addiction. Up to now, a vape had been something you used to get away from cigarettes.

Now, it is clearly a gateway to smoking cigarettes. The amount of money being made out of this is vast. Companies are making hundreds of millions of euro per year in a market that did not exist four years ago. I have had significant legal engagement to see what I can do and am now assured that I can proceed on this matter. I am proposing to ban disposable vapes. I will shortly send a notification to the EU, which will give it a chance to say whether such a proposal is compatible with the Single Market. My belief is that it will be.

Disposable vapes are not the only issue. Importantly, the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, has legislated so that vapes can only be sold to over-18s. His legislation also allows for restricting the types of outlet at which vapes can be sold, presumably to the same outlets where cigarettes are sold. This will take us away from vapes being sold in every second-hand laptop shop and so on. He has other legislation in the works to ban flavours for vapes, which I presume is one of the reasons minors are using vapes so much.

I have visited the KMK Metals Recycling facility in Offaly, where all of the batteries and vapes in the country are processed and sent over to Germany to be successfully looked after. I have spoken to the manufacturers and importers of these vapes, I have spoken to others in the industry and I have carried out public consultation. I have done all of the work for this and we are now going to proceed to a ban on disposable vapes.