Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators. We discussed this in the Dáil. Water solubility is mentioned because there is a direct pathway to our water systems and we are trying to prevent that. Cosmetic products that are wiped off are not meant to make their way to water courses, although they sometimes do. Education programmes tell people to put the product they use to remove a cosmetic in the bin, for example. We absolutely want to get at those products and we are trying to progress that through the European REACH directive, which I mentioned on Second Stage. It deals with the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals. It is an area where we are trying to push the European Union to go further and deal with wipe-off products.

We are focusing on water-soluble products with this legislation because there is a direct path to water courses. We are trying to be quite specific in that regard to shut down this avenue. We recognise that we must go further and we will do that under the EU REACH programme that is being progressed, and which we are at the forefront of progressing.