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

This is a critical issue. What is at stake is that the polluter pays principle would apply. One could see in these documents which have been released, uncovered by Mr. Juno McEnroe in the Irish Examiner, Ms Lynn Boylan, a former MEP, and indeed Mr. Daniel Murray from The Sunday Business Post, that rather than the polluter pays, what we have had in the management of plastics in recent years is that the polluter sets the policy. Through this cache of over 100 emails, we can see a Department that is operating hand in glove with the industry representative group, Repak. In the drafting of the plastics directive in the European Union, which was only passed earlier this year and which is critical legislation, and in the debate on my party's Waste Reduction Bill 2017, which has been killed by the Government by its failure to issue a money message, at every stage of the process, the Department was turning to Repak for a steer on what was the best approach to take. In the European context, that was going right through most aspects of the legislation. The Government, effectively representing the industry, looked to weaken the provisions of the directive and reduce the category of items that might be included in restrictions to weaken timelines and constantly feed back to industry the latest developments. Reading the emails, as reported in the Irish Examiner, someone asks whether the recipient can telephone in the next half an hour. Indeed, in the emails published in The Sunday Business Postthe same system applied in the context of the processing of my party's legislation. It is not only email correspondence but, according to the articles, meetings were also held on a regular basis.

It is not right that, in the context of this country seeking to go green and wanting to gain public confidence in how public policy is managed, industry interests and the public interest are so entwined. In this area, the public interest is very real. This is not a minor or side issue for most people. I refer to single-use plastics, the problem of plastic waste pollution and the need for us to be stringent, ambitious and bold in terms of telling companies such as Coca-Cola and Britvic that we will run this consumer area not on the basis of their interests but, first and foremost, with environmental and consumer protection interests in mind.

That is why it is a significant and worrying development that the Department appears to be closely dependent on the industry representative group. I am keen to know what the Minister thinks of what was stated in these emails. I am keen to know whether he thinks this is acceptable practice. If he does not, I am keen to know what the Department will do to change its working procedures so that this type of lobbying on behalf of industry groups will not happen in Brussels or here.

This relates to the ongoing debate we have had in this House as to how Opposition legislation is treated. We never got a satisfactory answer. My party's legislation was in tune with the European legislation, even the version that was finally passed. All we heard at the committee was that we could not do it and, effectively, the industry reasons as to why it could not be done. That is not good enough.

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