Michael Fitzmaurice Warns Levy Scheme Blocks Local Plastic Recycling

Any of your plastics going for recycling go to Monaghan? Correct, yes, there's a recycler there we supply to them. And I presume you're aware, because I think it was in all the papers, that they had a licence to store 4,000 tonnes. I'm not going to mention their names, but it was on the papers. It's public knowledge, so I'm not saying anything untold. And planning was refused for it to be able to go to 20,000 tonnes. Did you send plastic to theirs since then? We're supplying to them all the time, as I understand it. Do you know what tonnage is there? Is it inside the boundaries of the 4,000 tonnes? I have no idea. That would be a matter for themselves. But none of the authorities have brought to our attention any problem with the plastic. Okay. To the department, Bernie, we try and encourage recycling everywhere around Ireland, right? So if I'm an entrepreneur, just look at it from this side. If I'm an entrepreneur that decides to put in a system, and I know there's a person actually doing it in Clare at the moment, that has put in a huge effort. And you try and encourage people to do these things. So if I head off and put on my tanks and get my shredding machine and do my washing and try and get it as green waste or amber, amber is a problem. If you get it as green waste, but it's washed and cleaned and baled, you can get it to some facilities fairly cheap money. And what you're doing in your department is preventing people from being entrepreneurs, because there's 286 euro a ton paid on that. But if I set up in my plant doing this, and I collect plastic, I'm prevented from that. We do not think that the department should be looking outside the box, while IFFPG are given a service, that they'd be more able to, that we'd encourage more around the country. And we might actually, rather than stuff having to go out of the country as amber waste and big problems, like Lourdes has gone out of this country that went through Antwerp, I think, had to come back. That's the facts. And there's so much hassle in that. And instead of just sort of dodding along, and why don't we have a system or an opportunity that if someone decides to set up a plant, everything is about the importer, everything that you've said today is the person that sends it in is responsible for that plastic. That's it. In the story. But if I decide to set up and build a plant, because these plants are tricky, let no one say they're not, and the volumes that you can get through is pretty small. We've seen, I've been at plants around the country, and they had great aspirations, but it's tricky stuff, and the machinery is pretty complicated. But the department is now preventing somebody from deciding, like that outfit in clear, I've looked at that outfit in clear, what they're doing, and they're able to wash it and do all that and get it bailed and that kind of thing. And you'll get huge, you'll get way more openings for it. That's when no one, once you have it that way. But you still are preventing them from getting the €260 that might actually make them viable. Well, that's the facts. How is that you're not prepared to think outside the bottom? Right. Can we let Bernie answer that? Yeah. Bernie? I'm not familiar with the precise case, you know, the – Well, I'm talking about if I, in the morning, decided to do it. Yeah. Well, I don't see how the scheme is preventing any of that happening. How would I get the €260 a ton? That the scheme is there to protect. Sorry. Sorry. If I set up my plant recycling plastic, I am not the importer, I have nothing got to do with it. If farmers come to me and bring the plastic to me, they'll pay the €120 or whatever that they get, right, to me. But the €286 per ton, when it comes into the country, is not going to be paid to me. So, isn't that preventing me from actually being an entrepreneur in that industry? Go ahead, Bernie. Well, I would see that the scheme would be open to any proposal from a domestic recycler. I don't see how that's a difficulty. If you're talking about the levy on the plastic at the point of purchase, that's how the producer meets its obligations when they place it on the market. And so the producers have chosen under the regulations, as is their right, to set up a scheme, as the scheme is set up, to organise for the payment of that levy into the scheme and to organise the recycling in that way. And it means that all that plastic is collected successfully and is recycled successfully. And the scheme would like to see more of it recycled in Ireland. Was it not a better system, if you wanted to basically encourage different things, that ye as a department, every bit of plastic that came in that the levy was paid, like there is on other things. We pay a carbon tax, but it's through a government we pay it. But that the levy was paid, and whatever IFFPG done, you pay them, whatever Johnny down the road done in his recycling, providing he had the numbers, because you have to have a number of every roll when you go picking up the thing. How is it there isn't a bit of thinking outside the box? This is a closed shop for anyone that wants to set up a recycling business in Ireland. Because you are going to get $1.20 as again $2.86 and $1.20. The maths don't stack up for you. And if we are trying to be, we see a place gone in the Netherlands at the moment, and if that goes outside the EU, under the Green Deal, you ain't going there. It's over for, so we need to be starting to look outside the box to try and basically encourage more people and more ways of recycling. I just cannot understand the Department's sort of closed door on all of this. Is there a question, sorry? Yeah. Are you open to looking at something like I'm seeing? Well, as far as we're concerned, the scheme is meeting the objectives. Keep repeating yourself. We know the scheme that's there, that whoever brings it in pays this living. But if I set up as an industry that will give employment, that will recycle plastic, that will be doing good for both farmers and our country, I'm left out of that $2.86, no matter what I do. So, is that the way you want to go on as a department? That's what I'm asking. I think you're putting the $2.86 together with setting up the business. No, it's $2.86 per tonne for plastic coming into the country. That's it. It's $1.20 after that. That's what it is. And the $1.20 is double because every tonne that comes in clean goes out $2.40. The commercial undertaking is a matter for the IFFPG and if somebody has a proposal to put together… No, no, no, hold on. In fairness, they are their own business. They run their own business. You're the department. You're the department of climate action and all of that. Right? So, you're the department that should be, say, the bottles, as was talked by Willie earlier, has been, in fairness, a good success. New ideas that came in. But if I decide that I'm going to be the Mr. Recycler of Ireland, I'll set up a plant, I'll do everything. All I get is that every tonne that I put in, I'll have lost €286. Now, that's some system if a country is talking about recycling. And I'd advise the department to just think about what they're doing. And think outside the box for entrepreneurs. Because what's going on in Clare, it's small scale, but my God, the person, what they have done to change what they have done, or to recycle it, is phenomenal. I think very much is Crystal, in common. Okay, Deputy Newsome brother. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Newsome brother. Okay. Thank you.