Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

It is regrettable that the figures the Minister of State gave a date from before the introduction of the deposit return scheme. The information I have is that by the end of this month, 17,000 tonnes of plastic will have been collected under the scheme but only 3,400 tonnes of that will have been brought to a factory in the State. I mentioned previously to the Tánaiste in the House that Shabra Plastics and Recycling, a company in my constituency, can do a large part of the work. The process involves the bottles being washed, flaked, pelleted and then returned as bottles. Shabra can do the first two parts, that is, washing and flaking. The immediate environmental benefit from this is that four lorry loads of plastic bottles become three lorry loads of flakes. Is Repak obliged to follow any environmental consideration in the operation of the scheme? It seems to me it is not.

See this speech in context