Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I do not accept that and I do not see research on that before me, not that I blame our guests for that. They were asked to look at particular criteria and a particular model.

Many years ago, in Galway, we aimed to reach 45% recycling and that could only be done over five years. However, following a six-week pilot project, we achieved 70% recycling through encouragement and education. People were ahead of the engineers, management and politicians. A paper was written about it, entitled Incineration: A Burning Issue or a Load of Rubbish? What I learned from that, and continue to learn, is that people are way ahead of us and want to change. They just need policies that help them and create the environment where they can change. I would love to see research on that. I am just using Galway as a good example where people led the way and recycled against all expert advice. The effect of it has been written up.

I am a human being and mother. There are many other ways to encourage changes in behaviour, rather than a punitive tax, which is regressive, and then having to come up with some imaginative way to undo it. We are starting from the position that it is a regressive tax, as our guests have acknowledged, and then trying to undo it with a view to changing an element of behaviour. It is unnecessary because people want to change.

A climate emergency has been declared and that has not been led by politicians but by the people on the ground who have forced us to act. The people are ahead of us. Other policies would be much more beneficial and I would love to see research on that.