Results 641-660 of 2,990 for speaker:Ossian Smyth

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Energy (Windfall Gains in the Energy Sector) (Cap on Market Revenues) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (5 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: We asked for advice on extending the term in either direction. Our constraint is constitutional. Other countries do not have Bunreacht na hÉireann. They have their own constitutional arrangements to make their laws compliant. It is not just the retrospectivity. It is also about property rights within our Constitution, which are very strong. There is a different set of circumstances...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the committee for inviting me to speak here today. I also thank Ms Catherine Higgins for assisting me. She is one of the civil servants in the Department who has responsibility for the circular economy. It is just a year now since the enactment of the Circular Economy Act and it is an opportunity to review the progress that has been made in the last year and to discuss the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the Deputy for the question and for telling me the committee supports the circular economy. Sometimes, circular economy actions are seen as either banning or attracting things rather than presenting a positive opportunity for business. I am happy to be here today because it is a new emerging sector. Many of the jobs and much of the investment will be very local, spread around the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: Government procurement is a huge part of the market. If the Government decides to start spending its money in a particular way, that can affect the market overall. Second, the Government should be leading by example. If the State is not spending its money in a circular way but trying to tell the rest of society, including private society, individuals, businesses and community groups, that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: -----who showed me their product. I also visited a facility in Waterford where they were taking old pieces of PPE including facemasks, simply heating them up to a temperature at which no bugs, bacteria or viruses could live on them, and then melting them down into plastic and creating new PPE or sports equipment. I met the head of procurement in the HSE, John Swords, which is the largest...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: It is important that we increase the amount of products that are repaired and that people have a right to have products repaired. Society has obviously changed from a time when it was completely normal for our parents’ generation to get things fixed. Many of the businesses that were involved in renovating have disappeared. Some young people would not even be aware that shoes can be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: My television broke down. I wanted to know where I could find a television repair shop. That was a normal thing when I was a child. It was actually very hard to find that. A map is needed. There is a map on a website called repairmystuff.ieand that needs more help and support from central government. It is run by one of the local authorities. That is a signpost. I believe that going...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I thank Deputy Bruton. He is a former Minister with responsibility for this area and he has ongoing interest in this area. Deputy Bruton said he thinks that while targets and strategies are being set we are not actually managing to meet them in practice and that we are not likely to meet our targets. We are meeting our recycling targets at present. We are in compliance. The question is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I would be very happy to look at what the Dutch are doing. The Office of Public Procurement reports to me. I have responsibility for the environment division, which the Deputy formerly had, and the circular economy, but I also have the procurement function under me. I have asked the Office of Government Procurement to form alliances with its Dutch counterparts which it did. I want them to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: The Senator mentioned single-use Zimmer frames and so on. People are really shocked when they are told by the hospital not to bring these items back and just keep them or throw them away. That is part of the culture in the health sector with everything being focused on infection control. It would be worth inviting a procurement official from the Department of Health to appear before the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: On microplastics in the ocean, there is a problem with plastic pollution worldwide. I attended a UN conference on creating a worldwide convention about what to do about plastic pollution, much of which comes out of things such as washing machines, goes into rivers, ends up in the sea, and then gets eaten by fish, which we eat. Unbelievably, we are eating a credit card's worth of plastic...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: The Houses passed a law last summer, namely, the Circular Economy Act. That included provision to allow local authorities to use CCTV to catch people littering and to use drones and bodycams to catch people dumping. The reason we did this was that people who had been caught dumping in the past had successfully defended themselves on the basis that their privacy rights had been invaded under...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: My understanding is that someone can use CCTV to cover his or her own land. Now I may be wrong.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: The question is then when it spills onto the roadway. For example, many people will have a CCTV camera on the front of their business or even a doorbell that has CCTV on it, which covers their area but may flow out onto the street and may also cover part of the public area. This has been tested under European law. It is acceptable, if it is not the primary focus of the camera, that it is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I do not believe so, not under law. It has to be the local authority that does it. The local authorities will now be empowered to come up with their own schemes, which are targeted on areas that are causing trouble such as litter black stops and areas where there is a problem. It has to be proportionate and fair. They cannot put a camera on every street corner. However, they will be able...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I will start with the question about data controllers on local authorities. I am regularly in contact with the local authorities on this issue and they have not raised this with me, if it is an issue. I will say it to them the next time I am talking to the staff but they have not said to me that they have got an issue with this. The Deputy mentioned the centre of excellence for circular...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the Deputy. His first question was on whether the sectoral targets were done yet. They are not. They are in progress but not complete. We will see them later this year. Will they include targets for reuse? They will, and I know this because it is in the legislation that we must have reuse targets. We are, therefore, going to have them. It will be noticed as well that there are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: The deposit return scheme for bringing back bottles and cans goes live nationally on 1 February. People will see these machines appearing in their local supermarkets. They may be in the car park or in the store, depending on what store management has decided. Any small business owner with any queries about the scheme can talk to Re-turn, which is the company running the scheme. They will...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: The Circular Economy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I think that refills are happening on a very small scale in small businesses. My impression is that it is not happening in a very sustainable way. Some small shops ask people to refill their containers and give customers a discount on the product. We are asking people to change their culture, mindset and habits, which is very difficult to do. A broader application of the concept is...