Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. This committee has discussed the collection of farm plastic on a number of occasions. There will be a lot of unease about how it is operating and there will be unease about the way IFFPG is performing as well. The first question I will ask is about the Minister of State's comment that the producer pays. It is the user of the plastic, in this case, the farmer, who is paying for the plastic at the point of purchase and the point of disposal. Farmers are not the producers, but they are paying at both ends.

The other issue is that there are huge stockpiles. The committee has seen evidence which proves that. There is a significant stockpile of uncollected plastic in farmyards. We know there are yards with a significant tonnage of plastic piled high that has not been collected, even though the farmer has paid a levy on it at the point of purchase and the point of collection. The plastic can be seen lying in very large heaps, and it is not being collected. We feel this is a serious environmental issue that has the potential to do significant damage to us. Why is this happening on the IFFPG's watch? As I said, it is collecting a levy on all the plastic that is purchased and there is also a levy paid on the plastic that is collected as well. In such circumstances, how can we have a situation where there are large quantities of plastic being stockpiled? We are talking about five or six locations around the country where there are large collections of plastic. We would have estimated as a committee that we could be talking about anywhere between 40,000 to 50,000 tonnes of plastic lying in yards and not being recycled, even though all the necessary contributions are being paid by the user.