Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Minister of State’s bona fides in relation to charging. I do not consider this to be a huge transfer of power to any given Minister. The reality is that we do not know how the landscape will change in the coming years. The Minister of State is quite right in saying that the Government can come back and amend the legislation. We already have in this Bill, which is an amendment Bill, a huge volume of amendments that make it even more impenetrable to ordinary people and more difficult. Another amendment Bill will compound that further.

The Minister of State knows that I support what is trying to be done in the Bill. When we were councillors together in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, I brought forward a bylaw to ban the use single-use plastics in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown that was passed by the council in March 2020. I support 100% what the Bill is trying to do. I agree with the Minister of State that small levies yield small results. Big levies, therefore, within reason, also yield big results. The danger is what happens when €1 is no longer enough. What happens when the power provided through this Bill is no longer expansive enough to make a difference to consumer behaviour? The Minister of State's answer seems to be that the Government will come back and amend the legislation when that happens. I suggest we should let the Minister change that in a public policy format, in an accessible and transparent way, so that the Government and the State can respond to consumer trends in a more flexible way than requiring the lengthy process of bringing the legislation back the Houses for amendment.