Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If my microphone was not on mute Mr. Fogarty might have heard me giving him a little clap because I believe that our addiction to growth is a huge problem and it will kill us. That addiction and the capitalist model as it is are the real inconvenient truth in how we will face this. The manner in which economies - and I say economies rather than countries - handled the Covid pandemic was a disaster. It could have been contained if we had thought a little bit more about people rather than economies.

I refer to the loss of species, including birds. We keep hearing about how we are losing species and the impact the economy has on biodiversity. Too much responsibility is put on the individual sometimes and not enough is taken by the Government. I am thinking about fast fashion and I mentioned the vegan handbag earlier, which is made out of man-made materials. Could the Government work more to make sure all this plastic is not getting into the environment from things like fast fashion?