Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I join with the expressions of sadness at the tragedies of recent days. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of Ana Kriegel and Jastine Valdez. Their murders have shocked the nation.

This morning and this afternoon, in the Mansion House, not far from here, ECO-UNESCO is hosting the Young Environmentalists Awards. Visiting it today would lift one's heart and spirits and would give one renewed hope for this country. There is an incredible sense of can-do and many visions for what we could do differently. There is a broad interest in the issue of how we can reduce the amount of plastic waste we are creating in our society among the young people getting awards today. It is central to much of their thinking. Since the Waste Reduction Bill, which has passed Second Stage, was introduced almost ten months ago in this House, a number of other events have given us pause for thought.

EUROSTAT has produced statistics which show that Ireland is producing twice as much plastic waste as compared to the European average. We are ahead of every other country in that regard. Producers are obliged to pay a producer responsibility fee to try to reduce and cut back on waste, but similar research has shown that Ireland is the third worst, out of 21 countries in Europe, in terms of what we ask them to pay to meet their responsibilities.

In the past ten months, the European Union has come out with a new plastic strategy that states we have to take this seriously and move to a circular economy because China is no longer taking our plastic waste. We should be setting up new streams of waste collection and creating jobs and recycling here. The UK Government has committed to introducing a deposit refund scheme, one of the initiatives that is in our Bill. More than anything else, the likes of David Attenborough and others have shown the reason that there is so much concern. Plastic in our environment is becoming a serious health and environmental hazard that we have to address with vigour.

Our Bill does that, and it has been a useful process. For ten months we have been in committee. We consulted the library and research team and we have heard from stakeholders and international experts to try to tease out how to do this. This afternoon at 3 p.m. we will go into committee to vote on whether to accept the report from the committee on the Waste Reduction Bill 2017 and move the Bill to Committee Stage. The Minister is suggesting that we include an amendment to state that we will not take the action set out in the Bill. He recommends that we provide that we "may" do something rather than provide that we "shall" and he says that we should wait for Europe to do the legislating rather than doing it ourselves.

I fundamentally disagree. If the Bill is voted through to go to Committee Stage today, will the Government be willing to issue the money order that would allow us to debate the issues further at Committee Stage, and introduce in legislation the very measures for which every young environmentalist across the country is now calling? Will the Government commit to doing that if the committee votes in support of the Waste Reduction Bill 2017 and the report that has been carried out, and allows it to go to Committee Stage?

See this speech in context