Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin Senators for publishing this Bill and bringing it before the House. I have not bought second-hand clothes but I have been known to have clothes repaired, particularly suits and overcoats. That is important. They are expensive products and it is right they be repaired when it is possible to do so.

A number of companies, such as Cartier and Burberry, were mentioned. I certainly do not frequent their stores. I agree that their business model has to be called into question. I know why they do not want all their products out among people. In their minds, it will reduce the value of those products and the importance or cachet of relating to them. However, they are clearly oversupplying. These companies are oversupplying the number of products they will sell and, therefore, the products then have to be recycled, as it were, mar dhea, disposed of or sent to dumps. There is a moral issue here.

We talk about the circular economy. The circular economy, in some cases, is that particularly textiles are produced in developing countries cheaply with low welfare, sent to the EU and other places, sold more expensively and then, in many cases, dumped back into the developing world and disposed of. There is a moral issue relating to how capitalism works and the impact it is having on the environment. Something needs to be done.

I go back to why so many goods are being produced. If you are producing goods and you know that 20% of them will not be sold every year, why would you continue to produce the same number of those products? If there was an incentive, a sort of a stick approach and a penalty on those producers, perhaps they then would not produce as much. Therefore, we would not need a Bill like this. I agree with that sort of approach. It makes absolute sense.

As I said, there is a real moral issue in this. I have seen video clips, and I know the Minister of State and all of us are strong advocates of recycling. Some people say we should not recycle plastic bottles because they end up in rivers elsewhere. I do not know if that is the case but it goes against everything we have been taught about recycling. There are issues with how we dispose of goods. Regarding where they end up, there is regulation at European level. If product has been shipped from Galway to, perhaps, Germany for incineration, that is a solution. Whether it is the right solution, I do not know. However, that is a solution and we know what is happening. Seeing some of the images in different parts of the world of textiles and whatever else being dumped, it is not right. There is a moral issue. If something like this acted as a deterrent to major chains with regard to overproduction, that would be a benefit.