Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise with the Taoiseach the issue of the relationship of Government with the plastics industry in particular. Last month, the Corporate Europe Observatory published a damning and in-depth article exposing the Government's close relationship with the plastics industry. Much of the information in the article came from freedom of information, FOI, documents secured by journalist, Juno McEnroe, and my colleague, Lynn Boylan, former MEP for Dublin. Throughout the negotiations in Europe on the plastics directive, industry allies were consulted on the Commission's text. The industry was often rapidly informed of developments at EU level by officials, and the interests of the industry were put forward by the Government. It is clear from the FOI documentation that Government's relationship with the industry is much tighter than its relationship with the NGO sector. This is very alarming.

Repak is a company established and owned by the industry to operate the country's recycling schemes. Its members include companies such as Coca-Cola and Unilever, which are two of the world's worst plastics polluters, and multinational retailers such as Tesco, Aldi and others, which generate huge amounts of plastic waste. The documents released show the officials contacted Repak regularly to run text by it when copying and pasting new legislative drafts of the EU directive. Officials were also interested to hear the views of the industry as part of informing Ireland's response to what were, in reality, modest proposals. New information on the position of another member state was also shared by officials with Repak. It is not only Repak that has the captive ear of Government. The Government proactively sought the views of industry representatives and groups on the Commission's drafts of the directive on single use plastic and passed their concerns to Brussels.

These documents undermine any faith that we could have in Fine Gael to put the people ahead of the corporate interests. That is the core of this issue. There are some big battles ahead, some of which will happen soon, in regard to environmental concerns. Can we be confident that Fine Gael has the capacity, capability and intent to put public interests ahead of short-term corporate profits?

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