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

I wish the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, well. I agree that we all have to pull together to turn this country green. I was struck by the Minister's comment that he was of the old ESRI school. The ESRI school of economics will not be sufficient today. Last weekend in Helsinki, a 15 year old Swedish schoolgirl named Greta spoke very well about climate change. She said we cannot save the world by playing by the existing rules because the rules have to change. The rules of economics have to change. What we value and how we price, qualify and measure natural resources and their use in the economic system must fundamentally and radically change. The Bill will not do this but it is part of the change. In her speech, Greta said the politics needed to prevent the climate catastrophe do not exist today. I hope we can prove her wrong and I hope we can be inspired by the vision of what a 15 year old stated we need to do to show we can deliver in politics.

I have listened to the contributions. We had this debate a year and a half ago when climate was not mentioned so much. It was all about natural protection. It is right to introduce the Waste Reduction Bill because the Oireachtas climate action committee is starting to realise the scale of the change we need to make, not just in energy but also transport and land use, and how far off course we are in this country. We must also move towards a circular economy whereby we use materials less and really wisely. This is complex. It is true that sometimes one might switch from plastic to paper and the paper might have a significant carbon footprint also. We need to use less, use things cleverly and do things with this perspective in mind in changing everything. We will need a different understanding of economics.

I stand by the Bill. I heard various people state they would like to change it this way or that. I would love to have a debate on Committee Stage as to what would be changed. To be honest, I would not change it much because it is good legislation. We would change the original section we included on a ban on single use plastic cups. We accepted the legal advice that it might be difficult and that a levy would work just as well. The Minister and Department seem to agree with us on this. That is the one amendment I would make. However, I disagree with the Minister as I believe we could introduce the ban. We received much legal advice from our Oireachtas legal support and, having listened extensively to it, I believe the Bill stands up legally. In fact, it is in touch with what is going on in the European Commission. We will be out of the legal order if we do not apply these measures.

Some people have stated the Bill needs to be much more detailed and longer. I disagree. The statutory instrument that introduced a ban on smoking in public spaces is very short. How extensive was the statutory instrument that introduced the levy on plastic bags? It, too, is very short. This Bill is similar. It is of the same school of legislation as the plastic bag levy and the smoking ban. It is absolutely appropriate for us to make a political decision. We introduced a smoking ban with short legislation. We introduced a levy on plastic bags with short legislation. A ban on single use plastics is absolutely correct and valid. This is political rather than technical legislation because, just like the previous levies when the Waste Management Act 1996 was used for the plastic bag levy and the Public Health (Tobacco) Act 2002 was used for the smoking ban, our Bill uses existing provisions in the 1996 Waste Management Act which, we believe, gives us all of the tools we need to do what we seek to achieve. I would love to have a debate on Committee Stage with someone who disagrees with this analysis or thinks a ream of other legislation needs to be written to deliver the objectives we seek. I hear no one here disagreeing with this.

The closing remarks of the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, were very similar to much of what I heard from industry about how great and good we are. I am sorry but we are not good enough. I heard a representative of Repak, not the individual companies but the spokesperson for the organisation, admitting this and that the entire system needs to change. The line is put out by the Department that we are exceptionally good in this country because we have a brilliant producer responsibility scheme that other countries such as the US, Australia and Germany do not have. I am sorry but there needs to be an acknowledgement that the current system will not deliver the higher recycling rates we need.

The only disagreement we have on this is how much analysis we need on the 90% recycling target. The Minister said the Government will accept the target and my understanding is that the Government will promote it in the European Council and trilogue process. I presume this is done on some analysis and we are not just promising to do it in Europe without having some consideration as to how we might do it. The consideration has been done thanks to Mindy O'Brien of Voice Ireland, as well as Friends of the Earth, the Green Party research team which has done very good work on this, Dr. Dominic Hogg of Eunomia who is the best expert we brought before the committee, and the European Commission which has spent the past two or three years examining this in great detail. We are not flying blind without research having been done. If we commit to a 90% recycling target at the European Council tomorrow, as I understand Irish parliamentarians are ready to do, how will that target be achieved through anything other than a deposit refund scheme? I have asked this question previously and I have not received an answer. I ask it again this evening. If Ministers and their officials have another method of doing it and want to send me a written answer to this question tomorrow, I would love to hear it but I do not believe it exists.

This is the only point of contention and difference because, as I understand it, there is agreement on a ban on single use plastic knives, forks and plates. This has been the case in the committee. I understand there is also agreement on the introduction of a levy and a move towards compostable materials. We must be careful about this technology as there are all sorts of definitions of what materials can be used to make a cup. For this reason, the Bill will not introduce a smoking ban or achieve an end to plastic bags tomorrow. It states we will have three or four years to work out the mechanics of what exactly are the materials we want to promote. No one is disagreeing with the fundamental intention. The only disagreement is on the deposit refund scheme. The Government does not have a valid answer to the question as to what else it would do but it is banging its chest in Europe stating it is part of the 90% team. It would be more honest and more appropriate for us to state today that we will proceed to Committee Stage and, in the same way we introduced the smoking ban and the plastic bag levy, that we want to give a political signal. It would be fairer to industry and all of the shops, cafés and people to give this political signal. Sometimes this is what we need legislation to do. Our legislation does it in an absolutely correct way as part of a legal and European-supported process.

If the Minister states he will come back to us and prove he is willing to do this, I have a question. How long will it take the Department to come around and state it is willing to give this signal? How long will Fine Gael take? Will the Minister come back to us within a matter of weeks and state he has done the review and he thinks it is time for us to give that signal? It is not that we need to have the entire mechanics of the new system in place. That will take a couple of years.

10 o’clock

How many weeks will it take the Government to give the all clear and issue a money message in order that the Bill can move to Committee Stage, proceed through the Houses and provide the people with another good news story on the environment? We are good at this. All that is missing is the new politics about which the young Swedish girl to whom I refer spoke in Helsinki last week.

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