Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party welcomes and will be supporting this Bill. It is vital that we as a country move to a fairer, more sustainable and equitable economic waste system. The importance of this is now being felt acutely by ordinary working people across the country who are struggling as a result of the rising cost of living and high levels of inflation. It is hard to understate the importance of reducing waste, and the corresponding levels of pollution that arise because of how it affects our landscape, air quality and waters.

As we know, in a circular economy, waste and resource used are minimised by the use of products and materials that are maintained for as long as possible so that when a product reaches the end of its life, its parts are used again and again to create further useful and productive products instead of being discarded. The amount of waste that is produced all over the world is too much to comprehend, and we in Ireland must play our part in reducing waste and tackling climate change.

The efforts of this Bill support the transition to a circular economy, including encouraging greater levels of recycling. I, therefore, welcome the Bill. I am pleased the Government has taken on the issues my colleague, Senator Wall, has worked hard on, specifically in relation to addressing the difficulty local authorities have with illegal dumping. We welcome that the Government is providing in this Bill for the use of CCTV to deter littering and dumping. Senator Wall has estimated that across 31 local authorities in the country, the cost of clearing up litter and illegally dumped materials may be as much as €90 million per year, which is enormous. This is without considering the voluntary effort put in by community clean-up groups, which operate nationwide, and particular litter black spots we have in Dublin city, including in my area in the inner city in Dublin 8.

Following on from what Senator Boylan said, one of the big issues to tackle is embodied carbon and the use of waste that is involved in building materials in house building.What we see at the moment are large numbers of buildings being demolished to build new buildings for housing that can be reused and brought back into life, or at the very least, the materials that are involved initially in rebuilding, such as the steel and brickwork, are able to be reused. That is an essential part of a circular economy.

Another issue we believe is worth raising and relegislating for is the right to repair. We need to shift the balance of power from manufacturers and corporations back to citizens and ordinary people to be able to repair consumer goods. It would make a huge difference in reducing waste while also addressing a power imbalance between consumers and manufacturers, and putting money more in people's pockets. When I was a young girl, every single village had a cobbler where one was able to go and get one's shoes fixed and redone. Indeed, I used to have one cobbler at one stage to whom I brought my shoes, for which I paid approximately €15, so many times that he said I had to let go of them. It is very difficult to be able to find somewhere that does that now.

I repair a lot of clothes, leather and bags. I had to buy stuff online and teach myself how to do it and be able to sew. Not everybody has that time and luxury, and it requires an awful lot of intensive effort. Supporting the right to repair regarding our everyday consumer goods is very important. Being able to break down consumer goods into a list of component parts, seeing what they are made of and actually improve them is also very important. We should be doing things like teaching upcycling in schools, be it clothes or furniture.

Interiors are one of the next exploding areas of fast fashion. We see fast fashion come into clothing and bad standards of living where people are buying stuff to go out on Saturday night and not using it again. We are seeing it now when it comes into interiors and home goods. We need to be able to teach people how to repair to facilitate a circular economy and allow that to happen. My colleague, Deputy Bacik, drafted a Bill to legislate for this, which will include measures to stop waste and tackle the cost of living by requiring manufacturers, particularly of digital and electronic equipment, to make repair information available to consumers and break the monopoly on repair by the manufacturer.

Finally, we need to help people reduce the amount of clothing waste by encouraging them to mend and reduce the prevalence of fast fashion. Indeed, there is also the treatment of garment workers and other workers employed and exploited in a fast fashion single-use economy we have built up around us. The Labour Party welcomes the efforts in this Bill in making a move towards a circular economy. We ask the Government to ensure that climate is at the heart of Government policy in the coming years across Departments and be able to support the right to repair to facilitate the circular economy in the years to come.