John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The reason I am taking part in this debate is an email that was sent to my office and the Minister's office by Ellie Hoey, an 11-year-old from Dundalk, County Louth. It is much more appropriate that I read Ellie's words, as her email does much more justice to the issue than I ever could. It states:

Dear [Minister] Ryan ...

Hello, my Name is Ellie Hoey, I’m 11 and I’m from Dundalk, Co. Louth.

I hope you and your family are doing well in the current circumstances, and I know The Government are focused on important things at this time but I really wanted to write to you and bring something to your attention.

In these past years before Covid -19 I have become very interested in [the] Green Schools Initiative and climate change and what we can do to stop it happening.

I have gone to a few protests before and was supposed to go to more this year.

Because of this I have done some research into the matter and have discovered that Ireland produced over 1 million tonnes of packaging waste in 2018, for the second year in a row and that the recycling rate for 2018 had gone down from that of 2017.

Many small businesses in my locality have made efforts to move away from single use plastic and are instead using compostable and recyclable materials, and I would like to enquire about what The Government plan to do or are doing presently about the companies who can well afford to change recyclable and compostable materials who don’t appear to be doing so presently and especially because many family outings nowadays consist of going to the big chain coffee shops for a take away.

I am also worried about single use plastic straws, cutlery and shopping bags and the effects they have on the environment and while you can definitely see some change in companies trying to be more sustainable we are still very far off being as sustainable as we would like to be if we want to prevent climate change and the long-lasting effects it will have on our future generation and I am very worried if we don’t do something now that the earth that we will be passing on to my children and their children will not be a good one because of the amount of non-reusable plastics and waste materials humans are using up.

I think that the effects it’s having on the sea creatures and land creatures is devastating especially since they are not the ones using plastic and waste materials yet they are feeling the consequences [of our actions].

And the rate and way our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans are being polluted is terrible and they are becoming toxic very quickly.

I think this is a very important topic and almost more important than Covid-19 because we have found a solution to Covid-19 yet scientists are still [a little] bit unsure about how to stop climate change

I know I’m only 11 [years of age] but it’s me, my children and my grandchildren that this is going to have lasting effects on, so I wanted to write this letter to ask you what are you and your Department doing presently or are planning to do in the close future about this and I hope you understand why I’m sending this letter and how much this means to me and I would be thankful if you replied.

Thank you for reading,

Ellie Hoey.