Dr. Geraldine Brennan:

Speaking from my perspective, the area of material flow analysis is a particular field in and of itself. It is not my main area of expertise, although I am very aware of it. We have done it. For example, we have worked with WEEE Ireland to map the flows of waste electronics through its system to bring this to life.

Fundamentally, a material flow analysis helps us to see the magnitude of flows. It is almost like a hotspot analysis. The Chairman is correct in asking whether the process is detailed enough. Different tools, like material flow analysis and others, give a view of a system in the economy and give insights into leakage and loss, indicating how much is coming in and how much is leaving. These insights are valuable, but once we have them, we will probably have more questions and need to do other things to get more answers. That is again a bit of a roundabout response.

This is something other countries have looked at. I do not know if the committee is aware of it but there is an effort in the Netherlands led by the circular economy to develop circular gap reports. One was done based again on a material flow analysis of global inputs and outputs in the economy, and they are being done for different countries, such as the Netherlands and Norway. They are looking to see what the results mean. This is where tapping into the statistics and data from the Central Statistics Office and other entities can help us understand those flows. It is not something a sector can do by itself because it will only have a partial view.

I hope I am not speaking out of turn on behalf of extended producer responsibility schemes like the European Recycling Platform and WEEE Ireland but, between those two, they should have the data. They go through a process of reporting to get that data. It is a unique case. In other sectors of the economy, there is the question of how to compile the data and it may require dialogue with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Central Statistics Office and other actors - they may be missing currently - in trying to paint this picture in a meaningful way.

We can see with what other actors in Europe are doing that this is a worthwhile endeavour to visualise the economy and get insights into those flows. It is not the full picture at the material level.