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

Another major international report published today, from the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, calls out shamefully Ireland for its failure in green environmental issues. On many of the sustainable development goals we are doing well but in the red zone, where we are failing or going in the wrong direction, it cites our waste planning, waste management, climate action, ocean protection and global partnership arrangements. Shortly the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment will scrutinise the latest European legislation, which will compel us to start taking waste reduction seriously and mandates exactly the sorts of actions contained in the Waste Reduction Bill which we introduced and which this House supported a year ago.

At yesterday's meeting of the Dáil reform committee, we were reduced to talking to legal advisers about whether we would have to take a legal challenge against the Government in Europe for failing to live up to its environmental obligations.

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