Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 2 July 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Circular Economy as it relates to Construction Sector: Discussion

11:00 am

Mr. Eamonn Stapleton:

I accept the Chair's prompting and interjection. I am an active contractor. I am in infrastructure primarily; I am not involved in the housing and building side of things but I work with those people all the time. Attendance at our ESG committee has overtaken some of our other committees in the CIF, which are more commercially-orientated. Involvement in those committees is by builders, infrastructure people, demolition people and services people. They all want to know how to do it better. Whether that has yet resulted in lobbying of the Government to address it, I do not know. That is for Mr. Fitzpatrick. Whether it is done through an official channel, about which someone can say that is lobbying in favour of it, I am sure we can find out. The motivation is there, to reassure Deputy Murphy. It will come through the membership to the executive because that is where our interest is. We recognise there is a problem. The IGBC has articulated the difficulties and the different strands to it. We are only the poor guys at the tail end who will do what we have to, but we are investing heavily in becoming more aware of how we can do better.