Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle. I welcome the publication and the progress of the Circular Economy, Waste Management (Amendment) and Minerals Development (Amendment) Bill 2022. It is another step forward in this Government’s taking actions, which I regard as climate brave. I will come back to that point of politicians and voters being brave on climate action because without us taking those difficult decisions, incentivising and, in some cases, de-incentivising different measures, we will not solve the climate crisis and will not do what is required to address this planet being on fire.

We know we can reduce our use of fossil fuels, which is needed, but the transition from fossil fuels will only address 55% of emissions. The remaining 45% comes from the things that we make. We need to end our culture of making and wasting, which were many of the values that previous generations in Ireland implemented without a circular economy Bill. Instead, we need to adopt a more circular economy focused on use and reuse.

There are different ways in which we can do that and we know that individual consumer choices are key but that will never achieve the type of change we need, so I welcome some of the system change that is so crucial in addressing climate action.

Communities will be so important in addressing this issue and I want to give credit here to two organisations which have educated me on the issue. One is Dublin City Council, my own local authority which does very significant work in educating our climate ambassadors, that is, our Tidy Towns groups which are in every community in the city. I refer also to the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun, which I know the Minister of State visited. I encourage any school student in the country, and their teachers, to make contact with this centre in Ballymun. This was an old heating facility which used to heat the Ballymun flats, which have been demolished. With the use of European Union money and a great deal of renewable technology, we have been able to repurpose that as a showcase for renewable use and for rediscovery. My open call to the schoolchildren of Ireland is to come to Ballymun to discover what they can do with the circular economy. Those institutions educated me about this issue and, in some ways, encouraged me to be brave about it.

Yes, this will involve additional costs for consumers, which is what a levy is, and we have to be honest about that. Like other environmental taxes, we are making things that are bad for our community, our country and our planet more expensive. We do not want to collect these taxes and we want people to switch away from these things but in order to do that, we need to increase the cost of some of these items. That is a difficult decision, particularly in the context of a cost of living increase.

We are also putting alternatives in place and that transition towards those alternatives needs to be at least as ambitious as the financial instruments that are so easy to implement. We know the transition is much more difficult and takes more time but we need to be at least as ambitious on those alternative options. We cannot penalise people and not provide the alternatives.

When we take climate action, it involves opportunities but it also involves unpopular decisions and what I call being climate brave. Like the addition of cycle and bus lanes, which take road space away from cars, we need to be honest with people that what we are doing there is actively discouraging and discommoding drivers in order that we can make the change to save our planet. That is what we are doing and we should be honest with people.

Of course, we know that not everybody can cycle and that public transport is less convenient than the mobile heated armchair that many of our cars have become but we are doing this, not to discommode or to attack drivers, but because we know that is what we need to do in order to tackle the climate crisis.

Like the densities of housing developments, we have to be honest with people that building more dense communities may mean we have fewer traditional homes with front and back gardens. Why are we doing this? We are doing it because we need to create more sustainable communities.

With the carbon tax, we are increasing the cost of carbon fuels because we want to create a fund for a just transition that will protect those on low incomes and will finance retrofitting to end our dependence on fossil fuels.

All of these measures require climate brave decisions by politicians. They require politicians who are willing to take those brave decisions, often unpopular, and it requires voters to reward politicians who are climate brave and are going to make those difficult decisions. Too often in here, I have seen Members of this House lurching towards the easy answers, to the less brave decisions and to the populist options. That may get a person re-elected but it will not save the planet.

I say to people to remember the politicians who introduced the smoky coal ban, the plastic bag levies, and who banned smoking to improve air quality in public buildings. History looks more favourably on those people who are brave. I ask that we say to voters to look at those politicians who are being climate brave and reward them.

On the details of the Bill, I want to point to sections 11 to 13, inclusive, in respect of the levy, and section 14, which will allow a prohibition. If the levy does not work, we have to move quickly towards a prohibition.

We already have regulations on a deposit and return scheme from last year, if I am correct. I know a number of Members of the Opposition did not look at the regulations issued last year. We need to move quickly to have those implemented. Hundreds of people attend football matches and, unfortunately, bottles and cans are left behind. Football clubs in my area have often said they would love to collect those cans and use them as a revenue source to ensure those materials are stored away safely.

I turn to the issue of CCTV. My community, more than any, is scourged by illegal dumping and it is done by people within my community. The CCTV measures here get us back to a point where it is legally possible to use CCTV but it will not be the solution to illegal dumping. We have to go further and give local authorities more nominated officers to issue fines and to equip them in that respect. We are way behind in what we can do in tackling illegal dumping.

I very much welcome the measures in this Bill. We should also look at Senator Malcolm Byrne’s Bill on the CCTV issue and on emerging drone technologies, for example, to address it. A great deal of good work has been done in respect of this Bill and I encourage the Minister of State to keep going.

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