Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I do not know how the Minister of State can say Ireland leads the way on plastics recycling when, in fact, we are leading the way in shipping those materials all over the world. We need to build capacity. As I mentioned, Shabra Plastics and Recycling can do a large part of the work and could do it all if it puts in a pellet production line. That would involve a huge investment, however, and the company would have to have enough plastic coming in do it. I hope the Minister of State accepts the real difficulty is that the plastic is achieving more money elsewhere. Repak is selling it to the highest bidder without any environmental consideration. That is a problem because it not the best option environmentally and it is preventing us from reaching what the Minister of State has stated is his objective, namely, to have more of the plastic recycled in Ireland. Will he engage with the domestic industry and with Repak to end this absolute scandal?

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