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

No. Germany had an existing reusable bottle scheme before it introduced its deposit return scheme. They wanted to make sure the deposit return scheme did not displace reusable containers, which are obviously better, so they set the up incentives in such a way that people would be better off reusing than engaging in a single use. However, people have the option of doing one or the other. The German authorities operate both schemes in parallel. I would like to see more reuse and more refilling going on in Ireland, and we will do everything we can to move towards that.