Dr. Geraldine Brennan:

I will start at the beginning and work my way through. With regard to my positioning in the opening statement around the fact that the circular economy is a key tool in climate action, bioeconomy and the just transition, I need to be very mindful, while I am here, that I wear two hats. I have come here and given an opening statement on behalf of the industry members of CIRCULÉIRE but as the head of circular economy in IMR, I also have my own perspective. For clarity, I will try to indicate which perspective I am giving.

With regard to the broader umbrella of sustainability and seeking to achieve climate action, circularity, biodiversity, bioeconomy and just transition, from my perspective as someone who has worked in this field, I see them as being interconnected. However, when it comes to measurement, verification and reporting, there is the potential that if we try to make the circular economy do too much - meaning address biodiversity - we could make it difficult. The circular economy is hard to measure by just looking at resources and using carbon as another indicator to rectify its impacts. That said, I am not saying that we do not need to take care of biodiversity when it comes to looking at the bioeconomy. This is tricky stuff when it comes to setting targets and trying to make sure that this is operationable. If I put my industry member hat on, most organisations recognise that the circular economy is a piece of this climate action agenda, not a replacement for it.

At the same time, with regard to the Deputy's comment on making the circular economy a central spine, that is in the action plan. I agree that fundamental parts of this agenda are very important. In terms of regulatory certainty, I take his point that it is an ask of the industry in an area that it and policymakers are learning about and there is a lot of work still to do.

On whether the Bill should go beyond the need for a strategy and try to incorporate obligations for sectors and design principles, given the complexity, that may be very challenging to do. In light of trying to take the first step to keep evolving, in my personal capacity I would see including the strategy, with industry, citizens and public bodies learning as we go, as a more pragmatic approach. Following up on the Department's contributions at earlier committee meetings, we do not have a material flow analysis of the economy. We do not have all the baseline information and that means that setting targets that we are clear we are going to meet is challenging.

With regard to targets for reuse and repair, I would add the concept of remanufacturing, in light of CIRCULÉIRE's emphasis on manufacturers. While we have a small manufacturing base in Ireland and we import many products, there is an opportunity to effectively set up repair and remanufacturing. The distinction between repair and remanufacturing is that from a consumer perspective, remanufactured products are guaranteed as new with a warranty as a new product. There is a role for both repair warranties and remanufacturing warranties. Understanding what is possible based on the make-up of products are manufactured in Ireland versus those that are imported and the infrastructure set up to keep them in use in the economy is part of that conversation. That also involves looking at different sectors with those sectors and other actors to understand how we can set up ecosystems that include social enterprise and industry accredited repairers, remanufacturers and so on.

As to funding under this legislation and competitive calls or a structured grant scheme, ultimately it is about looking at the different needs of the sectors. I would not have the answer outright and I would not want to speak on behalf of my sector with regard to this. However, we have found through CIRCULÉIRE that there is a need for SMEs, and sometimes even multinationals, to get support to understand how to write a grant funding application. That is what IMR does for our bread and butter but we normally bring industry partners in. The point of CIRCULÉIRE's innovation fund is that we want industries to have skin in the game. We want this to be fundamental to their corporate strategy in order for them to lead this demonstration. I refer to industry members such as WEEE Ireland, the White Goods Association and FIT. WEEE Ireland and IBEC are leading that demonstration in the context of the circular economy power of many in the construction sector. The roofline manufacturer, Freefoam Plastics, is leading that demonstration and taking its entire supply chain with it. The support needed to do that versus be an industry partner in some sort of demonstration are very different in terms of the internal capacities and capabilities. The other piece is the need for regional demonstrators to understand and share learnings. One of the outcomes of the OECD's policy dialogue with the Department and other stakeholders over the past number of months was basically that while the circular economy is being implemented in Ireland, it is fragmented so it is difficult for insights to be shared among all these different projects and activities. If there is a way to put structure in to create regional activities, that would add value to the process. I hope I have addressed those points.