Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Going back to the circular economy strategy, we have had legislation and the Minister has commissioned work, which I think is called a gap analysis. However, we are two years from that legislation and I am concerned that the creation of circular economy strategies for each sector is quite delayed. I have always advocated here and elsewhere that we should bring the sectors together already, even if only on a voluntary basis without the statutory targets the Minister is working on. I would be interested to know when we will see those. In addition, bearing in mind that the targets will be dramatically different, will he review the outputs and outcomes? The only one being tracked here is waste diversion from landfill. We want to see reuse targets, material use targets, not just recycling targets but recovery for high-value use within a circular economy strategy. While I have a moment to be on my hobby-horse, the advantage of the circular economy is that it integrates climate change, biodiversity loss and waste generation into one approach. There is real merit in that and in building public understanding of the scale of the challenge that we have across these headings. I would like to hear about where we are in respect of seeing sectoral strategies emerge.