Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Circular Economy, Waste Management (Amendment) and Minerals Development (Amendment) Bill 2022 might sound remote to people who are struggling with the cost of living at the moment but it will actually matter to how we live our lives in the context of waste, emissions and climate change. While I am pleased to support this Bill, it is important that we put it in the context of where we are in respect of consumption, waste and the climate crisis. Anyone who has friends or family in New South Wales in Australia will know that they awoke to yet more deluges of rain, with levees at the point of collapse and sirens wailing. Here at home, we have seen hurricane force winds creeping up the north Atlantic with storms racing through the letters of the alphabet. We read worrying reports of the effects of rising oceans on our cities, including Dublin, where our Dáil sits. We have watched climate scientists scratch their heads at the simultaneous heat waves at the North and South Poles. They should be the only poles this generation of politicians are really worried about because we are the politicians who will have to mitigate, as best we can, the impacts of climate change and the excess consumption of our generation on our children and their children. It has gone too far to be prevented at this stage. We are now really in mitigation mode.

In the 1940s and 1950s, people in Ireland used to suffer and die from tuberculosis, or consumption as it was called at the time, but it is another kind of consumption that is killing this generation and our planet. As politicians, we have to be straight with people. As I have asked repeatedly in the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action, is any government anywhere telling its people that they need to consume less stuff and use less energy given the depth and breadth of the crisis we are facing and the abrupt climate change we are seeing with parts of Europe collapsing in landslides, Canada and California going up in flames, islands in Greece being evacuated and parts of Australia going underwater with herds of cattle being swept away by floods? I do not agree with our own Government, which puts too much onus on the individual as opposed to leading from the front and demanding institutional change on climate.

Two years ago, before the rapid melting of ice, urgent warnings came from Oxfam that the carbon emissions of the richest 1% of people were more than double those of half of humanity, or more than 3 billion people. We have serious work to do on these serious matters that will affect our children and their children as they live through the worst effects of destructive capitalism and all of the associated exploitation, manipulation and empty promises.

Sinn Féin will be proposing amendments to this Bill, where appropriate, on Committee Stage. The "latte levy" on a takeaway cup might sound catchy but it refers to a single-use model that is wholly unsustainable. We are running when we should not even be standing or replenishing. Already we use 50% of what nature can make in a year and, based on current trends, that will treble by 2050. What way is that to live? What example is that to give to the generations coming up? In light of what we see in abrupt climate change, how can any continuance of this level of consumption be justified? As the Minister of State will know, we are obsessed with growth in this country. We really have to look at that.

The drafting of a waste food strategy provided for in the Bill is essential. It is unconscionable that while half of our world is dumping food, most of the other half is starving. It is really hard to look at the famine that is destroying Yemen and to watch little babies' and children's arms being measured, with arms only as wide as our thumbs. While the starvation there starts with Yemen's people being starved, the conflict there has also been starved of international attention. Our own Government appeases Saudi Arabia's Government, which has rained bombs on innocents, and God knows the untold carbon emissions that arise from those bombs. The Saudi regime has engaged in mass decapitations and has actually butchered a journalist in one of its embassies. It is absolutely disgraceful. The regime is as polluting and devastating as the fossil fuels wreaking havoc on our planet, on biodiversity and on our people.

The disposable economy, whereby cheaper items tend to be of lower quality and require frequent replacement, is also having a poor effect on society. Inbuilt obsolescence will have to go. The right to repair is essential. We must have better quality goods available at a good price so that those on low incomes are not locked out of the circular economy. My nana was not wrong when she told us that we should save up for good things because they will last. It is very good advice if you can afford it, but it is lower-paid families who are affected because they cannot afford to buy the expensive version of an item. We look forward to the return of the local repair shops that are such a common sight in our neighbouring countries in Europe. We see haberdashery stores in every town and village where you can repair your vacuum cleaner, lawnmower or television. In my own home town of Maynooth, we still have a gréasaí so we go there to get our boots heeled and soled.

While I broadly welcome the Bill, as a member of the Select Committee on Environment and Climate Action, I look forward to proposing amendments, which I hope the Minister of State will look on favourably.

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