Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Paul Murphy raised an interesting point on one level looking at indigenous goods as opposed to imports. I take the point that we are a small island but it is more complicated than just saying "look at the carbon footprint" because if we look at freight alone, we must miss a piece around the carbon footprint of the production of it abroad. I have seen this in the past where the carbon footprint of something indigenous is actually higher than something produced abroad even if we take freight into account so it is not as simple as just looking at where it came from and saying if it came from abroad, it is worse. That is not the case, unfortunately, in proper carbon calculations. It is not all about the freight. We must look at how and where it was produced.

I know big businesses are quite good at this so they can employ people full time to look at it but we need to see carbon targets if we are going to tie into the climate action plan. Nobody has yet raised the circular economy. It now makes more economic sense to be ecological in looking at where you get your stuff and end of use, waste and cost of waste as opposed to looking at the different components of every part of your business and how you can keep things back in the economy and reuse, reduce or repurpose in some shape or form. We are way behind on that level. I see best practice in other countries. I was at the Rediscovery Centre yesterday, which has a good display model of some things around furniture, bicycles, paint and clothes, including fast fashion, but there is a significant piece of work to be done with small businesses around the circular economy. They are going to need help with that to look at components, where they are sourcing stuff and even packaging. It is now trendy to have compostable and biodegradable packaging but a lot of that stuff is only industrially compostable so we must be careful about greenwashing. When we move towards a climate-focused economy, we must look at greenwashing and make sure what we are doing will genuinely reduce waste and carbon footprints so we must up our game in that regard. This is where we might need upskilling across the people advising us. Consultants can be great but sometimes they just make sure it looks green. We must make sure it really is green, which is why I go back to the carbon calculations and carbon targets.

Sometimes the SME sector just needs funding for capital to help upgrade existing equipment, which would be more energy-efficient, and buildings. Then they might be able to take on more employees. Some small businesses are successful but perhaps what they need most of is capital funding to help them improve their buildings and equipment so that they can be more efficient and afford to take on new employees.

Are the witnesses looking at specific supports around the circular economy? As Deputy Paul Murphy said, the more we can produce in Ireland, the better. We could not even produce face masks. Manufacturing is very weak in Ireland yet I have seen CNC routers and 3-D equipment that can do this stuff. I do not think we are really going for it in this realm. I have seen a CNC router make a bicycle. Most children's bicycles are coming from Indonesia. I would like to hear about work being done in the circular economy if we are going to be serious. I firmly believe that with the right supports, businesses can be economically viable and very ecological. We must watch out for just saying the word "sustainable" everywhere and greenwashing. We have been doing that for years. We need to be very genuine. We need carbon calculations and investment in the circular economy if we are serious about this as we move forward to be a resilient island.