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

I learnt today that I am still an innocent and gullible young man.

At lunchtime today I was on RTÉ's "News at One" discussing the motion and I felt in my heart of hearts we were going to make progress. I thought that because today was the day when the latest scientific research survey showed that plastics are in our food chain; those plastics are in us. Tomorrow, the European Parliament will debate the new plastics legislation coming from the European Commission and from what I hear our Government will stand firm in support. No doubt the Fine Gael Members will be there saying we will go for a 90% recycling rate for plastic bottles, which has been the only contentious part of our Bill. I said to myself that the Government will surely support tonight's motion.

All summer we have heard this kind of thing from Fine Gael Ministers. I saw the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, at some convention claiming how good they were because there was a glass bottle on the table. The Taoiseach was in a coffee shop tut-tutting anybody who might use a single-use cup. They are getting the environmental message completely wrong because they are saying it is all about the consumer doing it and nothing to do with the Government.

We need to change. We need to make it easy for people to do the right thing. We need to be radical in taking plastic out of use because it is doing such harm to the environment, using up resources, and polluting our air and seas. We hear today and we fear today that it is also polluting our own bodies. I thought to myself that surely Fine Gael would support us.

When I got the news from the reporter on "News at One" that the Government was not going to oppose our Bill, I said it was great that we were making another step forward - the sort of step we made when Deputy Pringle's Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill 2016 was passed. We can do it in this Dáil like when we banned plastic bags as, in fairness, Fianna Fáil did years ago or the smoking ban. There are loads of examples when we take steps forward. I thought today would be one of those days. When I came out and was walking down the corridor, a journalist pulled me aside and told me that the Government was not doing anything; it would not give a money order and did not want this to proceed. It will do another review. This is a do-nothing exercise from a do-nothing Government on the environment.

We do not need to rehearse; we need to debate the politics of this because the contents of the Bill are as simple as it gets. Almost two years ago, we published the Bill banning single-use plastic items such as cups, plates, knives and forks that could be easily replaced. It proposes putting a levy on those cups so that we switch towards reusable or compostable cups instead and setting up a new compostable municipal collection system so that all those new paper or card-based items can be collected and turned into compost and not plastic waste. Most important, it proposes introducing a deposit-refund scheme on plastic bottles and cans which would operate relatively simply. A levy of 20 cent would be put on the container when it is sold with the refund going to the consumer when it is returned. It would be paid for by increasing the contribution from the business sector - the companies manufacturing them - from currently about 0.2 cent to 1 cent per container. It would also be funded by the high-quality recycling material we would collect in this process. This has been done in many countries in the world. We would not need a major new review. This is not like going to the moon or anything extraordinary. This is tried and tested in many different jurisdictions.

It would also be paid for by the savings we would make by not having to spend so much on litter collection in our most beautiful spots. Any of us, who are involved in litter clean-ups in canals, on beaches and elsewhere knows that this is one of the big litter problems. By definition, it tends to be worst in the most scenic spots because that is where people tend to go when the weather is good and, unfortunately, they leave behind the plastic bottles and the cans. Rather than us having to spend all that time picking it up, we can create a system where, as the international evidence shows, we can reach a 90% recycling level for those bottles with a deposit-refund scheme. I would love the Department or anyone else to present evidence of the alternative to achieve that target.

Tomorrow in Europe, the Fine Gael members will be beating their chests, claiming to be great in going to a 90% target. Meanwhile, at home in the Dáil, Fine Gael is refusing to support the legislation that would deliver it. The Taoiseach came out with nonsense today, saying that this was European legislation. In this instance, there was a party willing to present the legislation way ahead of the European Commission and we have been blocked ever since by Fine Gael. Now the Taoiseach today is pretending this is European stuff and nothing to do with us, which is such rubbish.

We need to act and we can act. We do not need to wait for Europe to force us to do something; we are well able to do it ourselves. We have shown it in the past. The Irish people are good at this. When we start doing things, we actually like to be good at it rather than all the time being seen as the one Europe chases after when we fail to deliver on the environmental directives that are in place.

I believe this would also be good for business. In drafting the Bill, we were inspired by what the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is doing, working with business. It is not kicking business. A company such as Coca Cola in the UK claims to be supportive of this position while in Ireland it is not. That is not sustainable.

If we are to achieve the levels of recycling of packaging we need, Repak cannot just defend the status quo. Business has its responsibilities here, but it is also proper business. How can a company sell a brand when it is part of this wasteful littering system where every 1 kg of plastic we use creates 6 kg of climate emissions in the atmosphere? We need to take a leap towards environmental sustainability.

I do not know if others members of the Joint Committee on Climate Action feel the same as me. In the four presentations the Secretaries General have made to that committee so far, I have been shocked at the absolute lack of vision, ambition, sense of leadership and direction. I fear they are getting their signal from their political masters. How could it be that every Department is coming in with no ambition and no sense of the scale of what we need to do?

In plastics, it is not just the provisions of our Bill. The good thing about the Bill is that it uses existing legislation. It even gives the Government significant time. It does not require this to be done tomorrow. It just provides a signal to the public service and industry that we are going in this direction and they have two, three or four years to make it happen. If the Government wants to conduct a review, that is fine. It has four years to conduct the review, but it needs to send the signal and show some leadership, be willing to be brave not engage in political games such as the Taoiseach saying this is down to Europe and nothing to do with us. I think it has to do with us and this Dáil.

It is not the only step. If we take this step, then we take the next step to require retailers to cut out the use of non-necessary plastic packaging. We should also require them to cut out the non-recyclable plastic packaging. We know we have to do this. We know that within Europe this will happen. Why should we on every occasion say that we will not do it ourselves, but wait for someone to tell us to do it, which is what I fear the Minister, Deputy Bruton, has been advised by his Department? That would be a shame.

It is a shame on this Dáil that the Government is willing to use the technicality of needing a money order to denigrate and lower the importance of Opposition legislation, particularly where that legislation is absolutely bang in tune with what the European Commission has proposed and European Parliament will agree tomorrow we have to do. As we happen to be a year ahead of it, it is not outside the ordinary or outside conventional policy thinking. It is absolutely in tune with the direction of legislation elsewhere. Having done our research in the detailed scrutiny stage, the Government has consistently stalled the legislation and refused to issue the money order. Coming out today claiming it is all in favour of this while using a technicality to stop the whole thing happening represents a real wasted opportunity. Minority government is not all about the Government doing as little as possible and stopping anyone else doing anything. There is strength in this Dáil when it passes legislation which sometimes comes from other than the Government side.

Carrying out the scrutiny has been useful. I accept we could do more scrutiny and be involved in the Committee Stage. That is what we do; we test out the argument. However, the process here has been wrong. The process was wrong in the committee where the final stages of our discussions on the Bill took place in private rather in public where the Minister was giving all his reasons for opposing the Bill.

It has also been wrong in the sense that the Department's story has changed every few months. First, we were told there would be a levy on cups and then that there would not. Then we were told there would be a pilot scheme in Cashel in Tipperary, as if one could hermetically seal Cashel and know a Tipperary bottle from a non-Tipperary bottle, unless it is a Tipperary Water bottle. The stories changed at every turn and we have been blocked at every turn. It is about time we stopped blocking environmental aspiration and inspiration and started working collectively to make the leap. This State needs to make the leap to be a green country. We can be a green country. People are ready and dying to do this.

We know this Bill has public support like no other we have ever produced. It has been blocked by Fine Gael. Every time the party comes out with the latest video or social media information about how great Fine Gael is for the environment, it should note its record will be shot if it does not let this Bill proceed to Committee Stage. It is not an unreasonable ask. We are willing to amend the Bill. We would listen to every argument, examine every figure and do the sums in every way the Department might want, but carrying out another review in which nothing will happen and waiting for Europe to tell us to act is not good enough.

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