Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That, notwithstanding anything in Standing Orders, leave be given to withdraw the Prohibition of Micro-Plastics Bill 2016.

I seek leave to withdraw my Prohibition of Micro-Plastics Bill 2016 on the basis that I gave a commitment that, if the Government published legislation or moved on the area of banning microplastics and microbeads, I would yield to it.

We have, to be fair to the Government, a general scheme of the Prohibition of Certain Products Containing Plastic Microbeads Bill 2018. I am quite happy to withdraw my Bill. I do so in good faith on the basis that in 2016 the Tánaiste gave a commitment that this would be legislated for. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government has published the general scheme of the Bill and I trust that the Government will now proceed in a timely fashion with the publication of the legislation and see it through to its logical conclusion and ban microplastics and microbeads from this jurisdiction for now and for all time.

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