Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Re-Turn has done a tremendous job over the last 18 months since the deposit return scheme, DRS, was introduced. Re-Turn, and the composition of its company as part of the extended producer responsibility, EPR, in the delivery of the DRS, is not obliged under the company law Act to publish its salaries. In good faith, however, it does provide its annual report, as per our Department requirements, and we are very much working closely with it to try to ramp up the DRS. To date, it has been very successful. Over €2 billion euro in bottles and cans has been returned. The reality we face here in Ireland is that up to now, we have lacked a full bottle-to-bottle recycling facility and while some plants can produce polyethylene terephthalate, PET, flakes, specialist equipment for food grade recycling has not yet been available. Due to the success of the DRS, we now have a consistent supply of high-quality PET. This makes investment viable, and that is something we are working on into the future.

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