11. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the steps taken in relation to EU directives on the circular economy vis-à-vis textiles; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18061/25]

Sentiment score: 0.01

Will the Minister of State update the House on the progress with Ireland’s responsibilities under the EU’s waste framework directive with regard to textiles, textile recycling and textile waste?

Sentiment score: -0.42

For the record, I am the chairperson of the drug rehabilitation charity, Liberty Recycling. It collates, sorts, recycles and reuses textiles, so there is an interest there. I was put on that body by the Ballyfermot drugs task force many years ago. One of the issues that has come up is that there is a lack of capacity in Ireland to deal with textile waste and we need to accelerate that, as the Minister of State acknowledged. There is the European Union waste framework directive and also extended producer liability, but this does not always follow the “polluter pays” principle and there is sometimes an approach of fines or levies. There needs to be some way of ensuring that the industry - those who are involved in recycling and reuse - has the capacity to address this, which means investment or grants from the State. What progress has there been on those issues?

Sentiment score: 0.16

The problem is not always collection and the EU directive refers to collection, separation and reuse. In Ireland, the vast majority of bring banks are not for separation. Liberty Recycling is the only one that separates but, even with that, the capacity is not there to deal with all of the textile waste in Ireland. We do not even have a figure for that, although we know that 1.4 million metric tonnes are exported from the EU, mainly to Africa, and it ends up being dumped in Africa. That is the scale of the problem in Europe, and we have a percentage of that in Ireland. There is an urgent need to scale up the capacity but also to make sure that when those tenders go out from different local authorities, this is not just for collection and export abroad, but for collection, separation and reuse. These have to be central.

Sentiment score: -0.13