I want to raise the issue of the deposit return scheme. Anyone who uses the scheme knows the reality of what is involved. When you go to a machine, it can be out of order, it can be full or it can reject perfectly good cans, particularly miniature cans, including Coca-Cola cans, for some reason. This is inconvenient, frustrating and an unnecessary torture. It must be remembered that this is not a tax that can be used for disability services or schools. It is money collected by a private company, which means there are CEO salaries, CFO salaries and secretaries' salaries and budgets for advertising and marketing and everything that goes with that. If you do not get your deposit back, the private company keeps your money. Essentially, this is a tax. In total, unredeemed deposits last year amounted to €66 million.

There has been a flurry of articles in the past few weeks praising the scheme. Tucked away in a few of those articles was information on a proposal which suggests that the deposit fee should be increased. I can see that the way is slowly being paved for people to pay even more just to buy a can of something. Is there such a lack of innovation in this country that the answer to everything seems to be to hike up prices for consumers? The Irish Waste Management Association, IWMA, has made it clear that bottles placed in household bins are recycled to the same standard as those returned through the scheme. If recycling is already effected through our household bins, then let us stop pretending that increasing charges is the only way forward.

The problem is not with the bottles or cans. The problem is that across the country most of our public bins are just for general waste. Unlike many European cities, we simply do not have the proper recycling infrastructure in place. Who does this scheme benefit? When I heard David McCullough interviewing Ciaran Foley, the CEO of the company involved, I just kept wondering why he did not ask what his salary is. Mr. Foley was asked about everything, with the exception of details of what salary he is on. This information is still not publicly available. As far as I can see, the only winners here are Re-turn and its successful money-making business, which operates under the pretence of concern for the environment and recycling targets.

Our recycling targets for single-use containers at the time of the scheme's conception were pretty similar to what our recycling achievements are now. The real environmental impact comes from reducing the number of single-use drinks containers in the use. The scheme does not do that. If we were concerned and serious about the environment, we would target manufacturers instead of consumers. It is consumers who are always the ones to lose out.