Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate. I welcome the legislation. I pay tribute to the work of the committee, which has produced a report with 62 recommendations. I have also read the report of the rapporteur, Deputy Bruton. I have read everything about this matter. I welcome the Bill. However, I will put into perspective why we need this Bill.

In environmental terms, the central reason for a circular economy is simply that business as usual is not sustainable, with global resource consumption outstripping the planet's natural resources. In economic terms, it is estimated that a mere 5% improvement in Ireland's circularity rate, which is the rate at which materials are recovered and fed back into the economy, would result in savings of €2.3 billion, at a conservative estimate. That is included in the Whole of Government Circular Economy Strategy 2022-2023 on more than one occasion and has been pointed out by the Taoiseach. The strategy also points out that Ireland is towards the bottom of the list of EU countries when considering their circular material use rate. I note the Minister of State has rightly taken pride in our improvement. However, in the overall scheme of things, we have a very long way to go with only a tiny window of opportunity.

Unfortunately, on the broader measure of circularity, Ireland lags behind its EU peers.

I will not go into all of it. According to EUROSTAT figures, in 2019 Ireland's circular material use rate was 1.6%. If it has gone up a tiny bit since 2019, I welcome that. The EU average was 11.9%. The Netherlands achieved a rate of 28.5% and we were at 1.6%. That is the context of the importance of a circular economy.

I would like to think I am not that old but I remember vividly a life where our clothes were made, our shoes were repaired and we ate local vegetables. I could go on. As my colleague said, I did not make a decision, and nor did my parents, to change that. It was made for us and we had no choice in it. We went from buying local produce in the market, repairing shoes and having clothes made to a disposable economy. Not alone was that done against our will but we were told it was for our own good. It was that lovely patriarchal voice always telling us what is for our good. It was the result of capitalism gone mad, under neoliberal capitalism. We had a difficulty with the god of religion - and I can see why given what was done in religion's name - but we replaced it with the god of Mammon and the god of consumption.

We have a model of the world that tells us endless consumption is okay. We boasted that Galway city was the fastest growing city and Ireland's economy the fastest growing economy. We boasted all the time. When some voices on this side of the House, and some even before we came into the House, raised concerns, we were laughed at. We were told we were negative and out of date. I welcome the Minister of State's approach. He is trying to do something about this. However, this legislation is just a tiny drop. It is welcome but it does not look at the overall model. We are zoning in again on the consumer, which is right with regard to disposable cups, and giving a statutory footing to a number of the strategies outlined here but we are not looking at the cause of what is happening. We are not looking at the production of the cups at all but we are going to look at their use.

In May 2019, under pressure from the Opposition, which was under pressure from the people, including children, the Government declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. At some stage we have to act on this. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was published on 28 February and followed on from five previous reports, stated that the window of opportunity for action is brief and rapidly closing. It sets out that the climate crisis is inseparable from the biodiversity crisis and the poverty and inequality suffered by billions of people. Half a million more people are at risk of serious flooding every year and 1 billion people living on coasts will be exposed by 2050. It highlights that climate losses and damages are strongly concentrated among the poorest and most vulnerable populations, who have done the least to cause the problem. Targeting a climate-resilient sustainable world involves fundamental changes to how society functions. The Minister of State does not need a lecture from me on this. I am standing here in desperation. At what point will we actually make our actions mean something in the existential crisis we are facing with climate and biodiversity change? That is what we need to do with this model.

I make my comments as somebody who was elected to Galway City Council in 1999. We were led by the people of Galway. I do not know if the Minister of State is familiar with what happened but we fought a campaign on waste. I was only part of it because we were led by the people. It was captured in a book entitled The Burning Issue, which catalogued the outrage at the proposal to develop an incinerator in Galway. It was not NIMBYism but because we had a zero-waste policy. In 1999 and 2000, massive monster meetings were held on the issue in the Corrib Great Southern Hotel. Deputy Grealish will admit he was first elected to the Dáil on that platform. My model was that we should have no incineration anywhere, not just Galway. We wanted zero waste. We had speakers from all over the world.

I mention this because we produced a plan in Galway City Council that set out targets for zero waste, and management laughed at us, saying it was not possible. We showed what was possible. Deputy Bruton might be interested in this. The power was taken from us by the 2001 waste management plan. The democratic control of waste management was taken from us. At that time, the experts and the people in Galway were saying waste was a resource and we should do something about it. For a brief period of time we rolled out a three-bin service. We had education officers and liaison officers. Can the Minister of State imagine that? It was led by a public authority where we were all involved. We had newsletters in Irish and English and liaison officers. What happened? Government policy, through the Local Government Management Agency, said "No". It told us not to do this.

We are now back to cash for cans. That is not included in the legislation but it will be coming in. We rolled out a cash for cans scheme where people could get €4 for 100 cans in a bag. The management broke our heart and broke the scheme. That is what they did. I am saying that publicly. Now we are going to go back again and roll it out. If I speak with a sense of frustration, that is why. We listened to the people on the ground. The Minister of State's colleague spoke earlier about radical listening with regard to women's health. There was radical listening in Galway about the way forward, when people told us this model of absolute consumption was not sustainable. That is the model that continues today.

I have here the enterprise plan for the west region, which is very welcome. However, I do not see a single chapter on climate change. There are little words here and there, like "sustainable bioeconomy" but no recognition of the fundamental change that needs to occur for this plan to be successful. I see no mention of a sustainable seaweed industry or a sustainable wool industry, both of which would fit in with the circular economy. There is nothing there.

I will finish on a positive note. I welcome what is before us. However, I ask that we stop pretending and giving the illusion that we are doing something. People are far away ahead of us. They know what we are facing with the climate emergency and they know fundamental change is required. Putting the focus on the consumer, talking about ordinary people as polluters and bringing in CCTV legislation is a mistake. People want to be good, by and large. They want to work with us and what they need is leadership that is commensurate with their vision, imagination and sense of urgency.

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