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

I thank Senators. I will not do justice to their contributions in the seven minutes allocated to me. I will have more time on Committee Stage to discuss issues, and I can also discuss them in the meantime with Senators. I welcome the general tone of the contributions from everybody. They were very constructive. People were genuinely trying to think of ways to make the Bill better. Although the Bill is progressive, it also harks back to a time when society was less wasteful.

The point was made that the circular economy is a jargon term, and it is difficult to communicate it. What we are really trying to get away from is a throwaway culture. As Senator Boylan said, the idea that, in the context of modern, hyper-consumer capitalism, we just use things rather than reuse or look after anything goes against the culture and principles of our parents and grandparents.

Regarding the new environmental levies, I want to emphasise once more that the introduction of these levies is to change behaviour and not to raise money. I will have succeeded if the behaviour changes and I do not raise any money at the end. My expectation is that money raised from the new levies will fall off steeply over the years as consumers switch to more sustainable alternative products and avoid paying the money. It saves money for the consumer because they no longer have to pay for the cup. As Senator Pauline O'Reilly stated, the cup costs 18 cent. That is built into the price of the product we buy. If we do not have to pay that, it is an advantage to the individual and to the business as well. We do not pay the levy because we have chosen not to. A lot of Irish people are quite rebellious against regulations, and they might say they are not going to pay the levy. That is what happened with the plastic bag levy. They did not pay it because they bought their own bags. That is a good way to rebel. Any levy introduced will only come in after public consultation. We are not doing a consultation on disposable cups for hot drinks at this point. We are providing legislation that allows for any type of packaging - for food, drink or anything else - to have a levy on it only where there is a reusable alternative.In that case then we will have a real consultation and not only one to go through the motions. We want to find out what are the cases where it is not possible to switch. We do not want to impose a levy in those cases. If we reflect on the plastic bag levy, which was very successful, the reason it worked was that we were practical in its implementation. We said, for example, that butchers or fishmongers did not a plastic bag levy because they could not reuse the bag fish and meat had been in and so on. Therefore, we will take a practical approach to this one, as we did in the past, and we expect it to be successful in the way the previous levy was massively successful.

There are difficulties both recycling and composting compostable cups. Most of them end up as litter, get incinerated or are put into landfill. That is why we will not exempt compostable cuts from the levy. Members will have noticed during the week that Irish Business Against Litter found that while there has been a sharp fall in the number of litter blackspots across the country the prevalence of coffee cups on our streets warrants actions to disincentivise the use of paper cups, even compostable or recyclable cups. I have spoken to many cafes. Senator Pauline O’Reilly spoke about the experience in Galway where nine cafes have just gone completely disposable cup free. There have a deposit refund scheme, as there is at many festivals. When one goes to a music festival one pays €1 or €2 for a cup and gets it back when one hands it back. It is the same idea and that can work. We are not forcing people to adopt this or to pay the levy. It will always be avoidable.

Many cafes stopped taking reusable cups during Covid but there was no obligation on them to do this. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland confirmed its Covid guidance is and always was that it is permissible to accept reusable cups. Some cafes unilaterally decided they would exercise an abundance of caution and would not accept them but there is no public health reason not to accept cups. We should remember in any café people are handling dirty cups and plates on the table and also money. Therefore, they are used to handling items that are not absolutely perfectly clean. Nothing in this Bill obliges a vendor to accept a reusable cup, irrespective of whether it is dirty. If one wants to be a vendor who just charges money on cups, one can do that and that will be an option.

The awareness campaign that will precede the levy will stress the need for customers to make sure their cup is clean when they hand it over to the vendor. That should be a matter of culture and politeness. Revenue from the levies will be used in part to support the use of reusables in ways that minimise costs to consumers and businesses. It should be noted the use of reusable cups should result in savings for businesses as they will not have to supply so many disposable cups. As Senator Pauline O’Reilly said, one café in Galway told her they had bought 80,000 at 18 c each just the other month, which is a significant amount of money.

I thank members of the Oireachtas joint committee for their constructive engagement with the Bill through the pre-legislative scrutiny process and for their comprehensive report. The Bill, as amended in committee in the Dáil, reflects the fundamental recommendations of the joint committee, in particular regarding the definition of a circular economy and the mandatory setting of sectoral targets in the circular economy strategy. Other recommendations of the joint committee will remain under active consideration by my Department for potential inclusion in future legislation. As with the environmental levies, I anticipate the yield from the waste recovery levy will decrease over time as wasteholders make greater use of recycling or reuse. The recovery levy will not initially be applied to construction and demolition waste in order to avoid any short-term increases in the cost of construction as we tackle the housing crisis and it will not apply to any recycling activity. Mandatory incentivised pricing for commercial waste will operate on the same basis as currently applies to household waste and I am convinced it will ultimately safe businesses money.

Regarding the use of CCTV and other recording technologies, which can include drones, bodycams and so on but only to catch people for illegal dumping, it does not warrant having a drone to follow somebody for littering. A CCTV camera under very limited circumstances will be set up but there will have to be a code of conduct. It will continue to be the role of elected councillors to set waste policy but the code of conduct will be set by the chief executive. It will be an executive function. For those concerned that data protection safeguards might hamper the deployment of these technologies, I assure Senators my Department has engaged with the local government sector in detail regarding these provisions and I think they are fit for purpose. For those who still have concerns about data privacy, I draw attention to proposal to use mandatory codes of practice, the fact that CCTV and other footage can only be accessed by authorised local authority personnel and the data collected can only be used to convict for litter and dumping offences and not for broader offences. I do not want to see these technologies misused and I am satisfied the Bill provides a robust legal basis for their appropriate needs.

Significantly improving the repairability and ease of maintenance of consumer goods is an essential component of the circular economy. Meaningful changes in this regard can be effectively implemented by way of comprehensive EU legislation rather than through piecemeal national measures.Earlier this year, the European Commission announced such comprehensive measures for the right to repair in the form of a proposal for a regulation on ecodesign for sustainable products and a proposal for a directive to empower consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and better information.

I agree with Senator Dolan that it is key that these changes happen at the design stage. This will be the second ecodesign directive. The first focused on energy efficiency. Now we are going to be looking at durability of products and repairability, which will be addressed by means of a consumer information labelling system. When a person buys a product, he or she will see that it lasts for so many years and that will influence his or her decision on whether to take a long-lived or short-lived product. This is to move people towards products that are either more repairable or more durable. The directive will also provide for the mandatory provision of spare parts and provision of manuals. Members can see that is moving towards allowing things to be repaired.

I look forward to further progressing the Bill on Committee Stage. Once again, I thank all Senators for their contributions. I have made extensive notes on their comments. I will either come back to them directly or address them on Committee Stage. I thank everybody very much.