The Minister and I sat together on the Opposition benches a few years ago and had many a chat about agriculture, recycling and reusing. The Minister often told me about his green policies. Fifteen years ago when development was being done around Dublin people driving lorries - they called them hackers - would get ten loads to the tips in Balally, Dunsink and other places. Today these lorries go to Longford, Westmeath, Monaghan and various parts of the country because of the problems with tips. Ironically enough, if we are stopped at traffic lights in Dublin and watch the shears taking down the buildings the rubble comprises concrete, mortar, gravel and cement. Throughout the country, be it Galway, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, there is a lot of what we call "muckaway" being shifted. In Dublin alone there are 3,000 to 4,000 loads per day. One third of everything being taken out is concrete, stone and cement. If this is brought to a tip it has to be buried with everything else. The Minister is overlooking this. This one third could be used on greenway roads or making roads. I am well aware of mica and I understand the situation but there is not the same effect with tar.

Consider farmers' roads, when they develop their farms around the country. One third of this could be saved in the re-use and recyclable situation. Article 28 is guidance on end-of-use waste, which is from the Minister's Department, but people are trying to get around the hoops at the moment, for example in trying to screen topsoil, whereby one makes topsoil available for green areas or for around houses. They are trying to recycle this stone, but then someone will come in from the council and say "If I catch you at that we will take your tip licence off you." For God's sake, as the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, and especially as a Green Party Minister, will the Minister, Deputy Ryan, go into his Department and sign a regulation so that cement or concrete, which is basically sand and cement, or stone that has been used, can be recycled for certain projects? I am not saying that it would be put under houses or used under factories, but there are plenty of uses that could be made by the person who is thinking of the environment. Instead of a lorry going with it to Longford, Westmeath or Monaghan, this material could be reduced by one third. Will the Minister do that? It is a very simple question.

Yes. We intend to introduce a circular economy Bill, which will have a whole range of provisions to help to reduce the amount of materials we are dumping or seeing going to waste. I fundamentally agree with Deputy Fitzmaurice. When I was originally a city councillor in Dublin, I remember the shock of realising that one third of our landfill then was demolition waste. It was often very good, expensive, and carbon-intensive products, which we need to reduce, reuse and recycle. It is going to be at a scale beyond compare.

The waste action plan has been introduced. It includes 200 measures that are very practical, very deliverable and we are systematically delivering. The Minister of State with responsibility in the area, Deputy Ossian Smyth, is delivering on this. We are starting to see it happen in how we recycle more. All soft plastics, for example, can now be put into the green bin. Demolition waste is an area that often would not get the same attention because it not household waste. I agree with exactly what Deputy Fitzmaurice is saying. We need to switch so that the materials used in building are recycled, reused and reduced.

I will give an example of the scale of the change that needs to be made. I had a meeting with Dublin Port recently. One measurement shows that some 97% of Ireland's roll-on roll-off port traffic comes in through Dublin Port. It is huge. So many of the goods we consume come in through that route. Dublin Port has said that Ireland will go from 35 million tonnes up to 70 million tonnes of imports. I asked myself what it was that we would be consuming twice the amount of? How is it that in this inexorable world there is a 2% or 3% expected growth every year in the use of materials? I said to them we need to review it and need to look again at the whole strategy of this ever-increasing growth in materials. We need to dematerialise development. In the building sector in particular we need to look at recycling and using materials, in a safe way and subject to proper environmental standards that saves us money, reduces the amount of waste, reduces the amount of imports and reduces the carbon.

"Yes" is my answer to the Deputy. Deputy Fitzmaurice is exactly right about the direction we need to take. I look forward to working with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, and the Department, to introduce the sort of measures that Deputy Fitzmaurice has spoken about.

It is not just about using the same materials. In building construction we need to switch to wood. I believe that laminated timber will allow us to replace a lot of the concrete and cement. It is not just about reducing the use of existing materials. It is also about changing the materials we use. That would be another way we could change from this big consumption and never-ending use of resources to switching to better ways.

With due respect to the Minister, the first thing we must do is knock the building before we could switch to the wood that he is on about. We must get the stuff that is there recycled. People have been trying to get around this for the past 14 months, in licences with different councils. I know one person who has taken the initiative of screening topsoil and screening stone out of the loads of muck that comes in. It is fine if it is boulder clay because everyone will use it on the roadways that they are making, and it is perfect stuff. One can put lime into it and it makes a perfect job of a roadway.

The Minister talks about legislation and looking at this. Why is there not a regulation, signed by the Minister immediately, to say that for farm roadways or for a greenway, for example, which there would be no problem with, concrete material or stone that is crushed and tested could be used, or that topsoil could be screened out of a load of muck that comes in? Currently, it is all being dumped.

The Minister speaks about legislation. I welcome his answer and I am not saying that I do not welcome it, but getting legislation passed in here is like pulling teeth. It is pretty slow and I do not want to be here a year's time asking the Minister when is legislation coming. I am asking the Minister, who has the opportunity, to sign a regulation to change this to being green waste or whatever.

It will not be one year, it will be quicker than that. A lot quicker. This Government has three years to run and I believe that it has the necessary plans: Housing For All, the climate plan and the national development plan. The Housing For All plan also commits exactly to the sort of measures that Deputy Fitzmaurice was talking about.

Across all Departments we now have to focus on delivery, delivery and delivery, and it being fast. We must take some of the capability we showed during Covid and during Brexit to make decisions quickly and not to be forever examining and going to the nth degree. Deputy Grealish also referred to projects taking so long. I commit to Deputy Fitzmaurice that I will go away and sit down with the Department and come back to the Deputy to see how we could be fast and quicker and how could we introduce not just the legislation but also the regulations needed to make that happen, subject to the right environmental standards and making sure that we keep the proper rules in place. I agree with the Deputy that we need to be quicker and more flexible and innovative and particularly in this area. Dealing with such waste and the carbon emissions coming from it is one of the best and most economic ways of saving emissions and saving money.