David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to go back, if I may, to the centre of excellence for circular manufacturing and innovation. The Minister of State said it will be up and running in the coming months. Will that be this side of Easter or this side of the summer? This is a business and enterprise committee and I would be of the view that this would be a very important way of supporting businesses and manufacturers out there. I ask the Minister of State to send the committee a detailed note on his thinking in this regard, including what the plans are, what kind of budget the centre will have, what kind of expertise will be involved and what exactly it is going to do. It is something that we should really hone in on as a business and enterprise committee because it is a great idea in terms of helping businesses. I am delighted that the Minister of State has a detailed note from CIRCULÉIRE, but I would like to support him in actually establishing it and getting it up and running. We need to know more about it before we can do that.

I also want to ask about the so-called latte levy that has been mentioned from time to time, namely, the levy on coffee cups. Is that on the way? Is it happening or is it going to happen? If so, I ask the Minister of State to tell us a bit more about it.

As noted by Deputy Shanahan and others, when one goes into a supermarket, it is very hard to buy anything that is not wrapped in plastic. Apples, oranges, bananas, everything seems to be wrapped in plastic. Single-use plastic has taken on a life of its own. What can we do there to actually cut down on the use of such plastic?

A gentleman came to me recently with an old lawnmower that he wanted to get rid of. I am not sure if he is rewilding his garden or not but he has an old lawnmower that has broken down and he asked me where he would go to get rid of it. It is one of those ride-on yokes. He cannot trade it in. It is not part of the WEEE scheme. Would the Minister of State have any advice as to what people can do with old garden machinery like that? This would include things like strimmers, hedge cutters and so on, that are beyond use and cannot be repaired, although as Senator Garvey said, we would like to be able to repair everything. My first job was in an electrical shop and people brought in their irons, toasters, kettles for repair all of the time. That is what I was doing when I was about 15. They left with irons with new elements in them and so on. Everything worked again. That seems to be all gone now. I do not know if one can even put a new element into a kettle anymore. Can one even get an element? We dump the whole lot now rather than just changing the part that is malfunctioning.

I wish the Minister of State well with the work he is doing. It is hugely important. God speed with it and may he have a fair wind.