Results 32,021-32,040 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: The Minister will have often heard the phrase "a stitch in time saves nine". Does the Minister agree that setting up a commission on care is already too late in the cycle? The reality is that if people stay connected and active after they retire, they will have many years of good health and not come into the caring system at all. As Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan just asked about, the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Activation is not just about work; it can be in someone's community doing all sorts of things.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: We are missing a beat here. We are too siloed in the way we think of this. We see people who are over a certain age as a caring problem, and not as an opportunity. Activation should be just as relevant to someone who has left the workforce as it is to someone who is aged 64 and wants to work for another year. It can be activation throughout the community in all sorts of unpaid positions...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: It is the University of the Third Age.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: They do..

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 61. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will outline the potential of a carbon farming initiative in the transformation of the sustainability profile of the farming sector. [18080/24]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: The Minister knows that farmers worry that their transition to a sustainable model of farming will not sustain prosperous family farms into the long term. There are many in this House and outside it who want to fan the fears of farmers. I believe a clear pathway to a carbon farming approach could reassure many farmers. To date, the detail in that regard is scanty, which creates uncertainty.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: First, I welcome what the Minister of State has said, but so long as there is no clear picture of what a revenue stream from sound environmental farming will mean in ten or 20 years' time, this uncertainty and unease will continue. We know, for example, that raising water levels on certain lands has huge carbon dividends. We know that benchmarking and reducing emissions by sequestration or...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Is it not the case that if we are to see a significant scaling-up of activity, and I think that is necessary, there are going to have to be substantial rewards linked to them? Surely, on a no-regrets basis, we should be making those substantial rewards available so that a step change can be considered by people who want a long-term commercial and prosperous family future. We need to take a...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Will the Minister convene a group to develop a circular economy strategy for the food sector? The climate committee will be starting to consider that issue. The facts are there. The Minister will know well that food waste is over 1 million tonnes and accounts for 5% of our global emissions. Half of compostable waste does not find its way to compostable outlets. Excess packaging in the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 47. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she has considered designing new initiatives to tackle under-claiming of benefits, which is widespread across her own Department and other agencies of Government. [18077/24]

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Food Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 82. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has developed proposals within his area of responsibility which would fit with the ambition to deliver a circular economy initiative for the Irish food sector. [18081/24]

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Inland Fisheries (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 127. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if the review of the recent controversies within the Inland Fisheries Ireland has been completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18534/24]

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Recycling Policy (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 128. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he has set a date from which all sales of cans or PET bottles must have a deposit paid; if he has discussed with retailers whether products without the logo and bar code printed on the container can apply a deposit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18591/24]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: I welcome the work the Minister of State has undertaken since the passage of the Act. I must say, however, that his Department continues to view the circular economy through the very narrow lens of waste and levies on waste materials. That is evidenced in his own presentation but also in the plan which he recently presented, where the ambition is zero growth in waste per head of population...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Where is the strategy for that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Two years ago we were talking about this Bill that became an Act. We were talking about the EPA. These are the very same things that we are talking about and I worry the scope to do something different is on a long lead. We need to nail down dates for each of these elements. If you go into a building site today, the smaller building sites are not separating their material. Everything is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Does the Minister of State want to comment on green procurement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: As the Minister of State certainly knows, the practice has been that it is the procurers who decide what it is they are procuring and they create the need for the framework. If they do not embed the need for green principles, it will not make it into the framework and they will not be found to be non-compliant because it was not specified in the first place. The view has always been that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Will the Minister of State or someone in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform let us know our baseline, say, in 2023 or whatever it was before this started and how we are progressing? Will there be some measures that will show us that information? I do not imagine than an awful lot of textiles are being procured, and maybe there are in...