Mr. Robert Walker:

I thank the Chairman for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I apologise for whatever went wrong in the beginning when I could not make contact. I probably did something wrong with my computer. I do not know but I apologise for that anyway.

I am a director of Walker Recycling Services Limited and my company is in voluntary liquidation, having a registered office at Clonkeen, Portlaoise, County Laois. My company has been recycling plastic for upwards of 15 years. Parts of our recycling facility include shredding, trommelling and other equipment purchased approximately four years ago at a cost of €850,000 plus auxiliary equipment at a cost of approximately €350,000.

The company has been contracted to the Irish Farm Films Producers Group, IFFPG, for upwards of 15 years and part of this work included the use of the aforementioned machines to shred and trommel plastic to clean it so it could be treated as green waste. At the beginning of this year requirements in respect of green list waste changed and it is now necessary to establish any contamination of product at 4% or less. This contamination could be water, grit or similar materials. This cannot be hazardous waste but it is contamination, meaning the plastic would be classified as amber waste.

This resulted in a bond being required to export amber waste and the requirement for the volume recycled by Walker Recycling Services was beyond the financial capacity of the company. We have been recycling waste for the IFFPG with these machines since their purchase and we also did it with earlier machines.

On or about the morning of 18 May I was telephoned by the chief executive officer of the IFFPG and verbally informed that the contract with Walker Recycling Services was to be terminated. I cannot account for how such a decision was made, especially in circumstances where we had the only facility for trommelling waste. With economic conditions in the plastics market worldwide and other economic restrictions, I found the company in a position where we were advised to hold a creditors' meeting, following which a liquidator, Mr. David Walsh, was appointed on 1 June 2021. The company is not currently in a position to provide any recycling services.