Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. I ran repair cafés in the past. The biggest issue we had was insurance. I identify with some of the issues the witnesses mentioned about infrastructure. On the ground with some of the social enterprises in Galway, such as Bounce Back Recycling and An Mheitheal Rothar, the biggest issue is the lack of support from municipal waste services. If they had covered shelters where people could drop off their bikes or mattresses, they could be assured that those products would be good quality and fit to repair or indeed to turn into something else. It is great that we have action on it and that we are seeing that the large corporations in particular will have this new obligation to repair, but there is an awful lot to get right for small businesses. It has to be made viable commercially. Even for social enterprises, it is not quite viable at the moment.

I would like to hear what the immediate plans are to address those things. I know that not every council is on board, even in principle, so there has to be regulation at a national level in order that individual small companies like An Mheitheal Rothar or social enterprises do not have to do all the negotiation with a council on their own, because it will not work like that. This comes up at the doors quite a bit. People mention that the washing machine from when they were children is still in their mam's house, yet now when people go to purchase a washing machine, they know it will break in a couple of years. It would be welcome if the public got on board but, as we know from other schemes, the detail has to be got right. It is good to have two years but there is a lack of detail of how this might be implemented.