Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin welcomes and will support this Bill. I commend Deputy Sherlock for bringing the Bill forward. I also want to mention Senator Grace O'Sullivan who brought forward a Bill in the Seanad in October. Unfortunately, this latter Bill was defeated. I welcome the news from the Government and Fianna Fáil that they will abstain so, hopefully, this Bill have the numbers to go forward to another Stage. We are supporting the Bill because we believe it is an initiative that will reduce the huge amount of plastic entering our oceans.

Microbeads are so small they cannot be filtered out during water treatment and end up in our rivers and oceans. These tiny pieces of plastic are then eaten by marine life and can end up in the food chain. Their effects on human health are still not known but it does not take a scientist to recognise that their effect would not be positive. It is estimated that if someone eats six oysters, it is likely that they will have eaten 50 particles of micro-plastics. The Environmental Audit Committee in the UK, which examined microbeads, heard that each shower taken using products containing microbeads can result in 100,000 pieces of plastic entering the ocean.

Micro-plastics from cosmetic products are estimated to constitute up to 4.1% of the total micro-plastics entering the marine environment. The fact that this accounts for a small percentage of total micro-plastic pollution in the sea does not stop it being significant, as it is an avoidable environmental problem.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's rejection of the previous Bill brought forward by the Green Party in November 2016 in the Seanad was disappointing. There is no reason this area should not be legislated for, as other countries have already introduced similar legislation. This is a growing international trend in this area and Ireland should not be left behind this progressive move towards removing these harmful pieces of plastic that cannot degrade in the environment.

In December 2015, then US President Obama signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 to phase out the use of micro-plastics in personal care products. In Canada, microbeads have been added to its list of toxic substances and in the UK, the government announced plans to ban micro-beads in cosmetic products also. The ban is also attractive as it would not have a major impact on industry, as alternatives exist to replace mircobeads. Many cosmetic companies have already begun voluntary removal of the plastic. Evidence given to the UK environment committee outlined alternatives, such as ground walnut shells, cocoa beans, ground almonds, ground apricot pits, sea salt and silica.

In rejecting the previous Green Party Bill on this issue, European rules on the free movement of goods were cited as a possible obstacle in legislating in this area. This has proven to be totally false, as the UK has received approval from the European Commission stating that a ban on certain substances on environmental grounds could also be compatible with the Internal Market. My colleague in the European parliament, Ms Lynn Boylan, MEP, who has been working on this and related issues, has been critical of the overall Irish Government response to the issue. Reflecting on the failure to act on this in a national manner and to look to Europe to take a line they can hide behind, she stated that Irish Governments were as usual trying to export their excuses for inaction to Europe when the simple truth is that they do not want to take any action. Ms Boylan stated:

If the government had bothered to do their homework, they would know that the European Commission has already said to the British government as recently as August that it can proceed to introduce a ban on micro-beads, explicitly stating that "a ban on certain substances on environmental grounds could also be compatible with the internal market". ... On top of this, France has already passed a law that will ban the sale of exfoliating cosmetic products containing solid waste particles from January 2018 whilst Sweden and Denmark are also in the process of preparing to move on this issue as well.

The Minister, Deputy Coveney, made some interesting comments. I hope he will act on what he said soon and not kick the can down the road.

I support this Bill, as I stated earlier, but I also want to register a concern my party has on a small part of the Bill. Section 2(1)(b) states that a person who "sells, or exposes, offers, advertises, or keeps for sale," any cosmetic containing micro-plastics is guilty of an offence. The inclusion of "advertises" would pose problems, as how would this be adequately policed? Due to the global nature of advertising, legal compliance with this would be a huge problem for many companies. Prohibiting the sale and importation of cosmetics containing microbeads should suffice and I am not sure whether the inclusion of advertises would be realistic, but we can talk about that when the Bill goes to Committee. Hopefully, it will go through to Committee.

Sinn Féin very much welcomes the Bill. It provides a simple solution to an avoidable environment problem. It will not have a major impact on the cosmetic industry as alternatives are available. Sinn Féin is happy to support this piece of legislation. It is estimated that between 15 trillion and 51 trillion micro-plastic particles have accumulated in the ocean, with between 80,000 and 219,000 tonnes of micro-plastics entering the sea from Europe every year. The quicker this is addressed the better. Ireland should be included in the group of countries leading from the front on the problem.

I commend Deputy Sherlock for bringing this forward and the Green Party trying to do that in the past.

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