Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If we are having a meeting, could the Minister of State have the 2023 figures for exports of farm plastic only and for recycling of farm plastic? None of us are conspiracy theorists, but we have a big concern. We have driven around, some of us have been in some of the factories that recycle plastic and some of us have been around looking at where plastic is stored. Some of us, though not me, have an idea how to quantify the volume of plastic. We would conservatively say, and many members would agree with me, that there is at least 35,000 tonnes of farm plastic lying around the country in yards. This has been gathered from farmers. It is not in farmers' yards put in yards with licences. If we multiply that by what it takes to get rid of the plastic - if it is being baled it will cost €160 or €180 a tonne - the figures do not stack up, between what would be in the kitty and what it would cost to get rid of it, be it in amber, which is how most plastic is going.

I ask the Minister of State to think this over for the next day. Will he appoint an independent person from his Department to assess the quantity of plastic lying that is around the country? Some of us here are talking to private individuals who might be able to do it for us in a fair way. Does the Minister of State have any concerns that, with the best will in the world, given the figures I have on what is being disposed of or exported, there is a balance of plastic lying around?

The other issue on which I would like an answer is this. Some people who were collecting plastic for IFFPG were before us giving presentations. The contract was taken from them but the plastic was not shifted from their sites. There was plastic that a semi-State body got a contract for. I would like to know, and the Department may be able to find out, where all the different loads of plastic collected under that contract went. Did any of it go to a tip?

Why are other people who collect plastic not allowed to draw the levy on it? It has now gone to €286 per tonne and farmers are also paying to have it taken away - some €50 or €100 a tonne more. That is €386 a farmer is paying. We are putting on the farmer the whole time the price of the bale of plastic. We still have not found a proper way to recycle or a proper export facility. Are we solvent at doing it?