Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join the Deputy in noting the favourable number of investments we have secured for Waterford and the south east in the past year or so. It has been really good news and my thanks go to IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland for that. I think there will be a good pipeline of investment for Waterford and the south east in particular.

There was a lot of unused capital last year. Much of it was related to Covid; things that were supposed to happen that just did not happen and construction delays in particular. We have been able to carry approximately €100 million of that. Sometimes what Departments try to do at the end of the year is spend unused capital. That means putting together a scheme and trying to administer it quickly. It is far from ideal. It probably works better around equipment than things that require build. What we try to do sometimes is get money out towards the end of the year rather than hand it back but perhaps that is not best practice. Multi-annual budgeting would be a lot better but we are allowed to carry over approximately 10% of any underspend. That at least does help. The carryover last year will be targeted at the Covid credit guarantee, sustaining enterprise fund and other supports.

The Deputy is correct about plastic. A lot of plastic can be recycled that could not be recycled in the past. People can put a lot more in their green bin than they did in the past and there are a lot of plant-based alternatives to plastic but, obviously, this is more an area for the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications than it is for me.

I will have to follow up on the issue of duty of care with regard to insurance. That falls under the remit of the Minister for Justice. She and her Department have done some work in that area. The idea was to reform the Civil Liability Act to rebalance duty of care so that people are expected to be a bit more responsible about not injuring themselves. Again, it is important to get that right. The ministerial committee on insurance will meet in the next couple of weeks. An update will then to go to Cabinet on the progress made in implementing the actions. I will make sure duty of care forms part of that update.