Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The evidence suggests the cars we all purchase are idle 95% of the time. That results in us building substantial parking facilities under more compact living, which adds enormously to the cost of new homes. If we could move to more shared use of vehicles, we could dramatically reduce our material use in cars purchased, but also reduce our building costs and make homes cheaper. There is a massive virtuous circle here, if we get the design thinking right. Is there a place in this Bill for design principles to be set out as something that sectors should refer to, audit and report and that they should commit to progress on a comply-or-explain basis in order to create momentum in the design space? Is there a place for packaging, retail or public procurement principles to be set out in order that we could start to see real momentum built in sectors we want to see addressed? It would not be a regulation beyond the European because these would be principles and encouragement, such as comply or explain. They could be compatible.

One of the complaints I received, not just from the construction sector, was that many standards prevent the reuse of materials; standards that have grown up and their unintended consequence is one cannot reuse materials. It could be in making toys from reused materials and they simply will not pass the standard tests. Are the officials looking at that sort of obstacle in any detail to bring forward change? I will go back to Deputy O'Rourke's point in that this is a big project. Whether the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has the resources is one thing, but does it have the authority to do the sort of sectoral work required here? It is one agency under one Department, when really we are talking about every Department in every sector buying into a process of deep change.