Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for her praise but, in fact, most of the work on this was done by my Department before my appointment. I have to give the staff full credit for that.

I want to collect as little money from this levy as possible. I want people to use reusable cups. I want it to be a habit and a new culture and I want to make that as easy as possible. I want to give people the choice and a way out of using a new coffee cup every day and throwing it away. With that in mind, I expect that, in the same way we banned ten single-use plastic products last July, including plastic forks, knives and straws, I expect we will ban coffee cups altogether within about four years. This is an interim measure leading to the end of that.

Where people have a coffee in a café or on its terrace, we will legislate so that hot drinks can only be served in a reusable cup on the premises. This is because sometimes people are given a cardboard cup in a café even though they are sitting in the café. That will be another change as well. The whole focus is not about raising revenue, taxation or getting a levy. It is about changing our economy to a more circular economy.