Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, is welcome to the Chamber. I thank Senator Garvey for all her work and I also thank Councillor Kate Ruddock for her passion on this topic. When we were kids, there was no such thing as plastic bottles of water. I will not say how much later it is but a little time later and we are surrounded by plastic waste. It is actually one of the real tangible things when it comes to the environment that people see and they can recognise as "This is a change I can make", but we must make change easy for people. Right now, we are out of the house a lot more than when we were younger. We are active people and we do need to have every availability in order to make sure that climate is top of the agenda.

In Galway, my colleague, Councillor Martina O'Connor, along with all of our colleagues, used her allocation from the council to put in a water refill station at Westside Playing Fields. Indeed, an Cathaoirleach Gníomhach will be aware of the Westside Playing Fields. This is brilliant because people are playing sports, they have their bottles with them and they can just go and refill them. It is the point at which people refill their water bottles that they start thinking about all of the other things they can do with their lives, which are the small changes we can make. These kinds of things we do in our daily lives facilitate all climate action.

Again, Senator Garvey is quite right. Why should people use that allocation? Why should it be community groups that then must find sponsorship when actually they are also looking for sponsorship for a whole host of other things, from my experience with the community groups I am involved with? This is a connection request that is just going to Uisce Éireann and the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. This motion is a no-brainer. It fits in with everything else we are doing in government. The Green Party is really leading when it comes to the circular economy. I hate the term "circular economy" because sometimes it is very hard to understand what it means. Essentially, it means looking at our consumer culture and asking, "Can we put a stop to single-use plastics and actually reuse things?" That is what a reusable bottle is. One is putting a stop to something that is just about purchasing and dumping.

I am looking forward to hearing what the Minister of State has to say. I am also looking forward to what colleagues will say across the Chamber. I believe we can all get on board with this. I believe we are all on board with the idea of climate action. We all voted in favour of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021. I am hopeful that we will get the support today.