Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Deputy O'Sullivan asked me to name the local authorities. I know my own council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, is engaging with councils in other European countries to figure out how they manage it. I hope it will be one of the first. I do not have a list of the other four local authorities, but when I get it, I will send it to the Deputy.

On the question about excess money, I outlined the financial model to Deputy Whitmore. It is not for profit. The scheme has significant running costs and the largest cost of running it is payments to retailers to handle the bottles. They receive a handling fee for each bottle or can they return and they use that handling fee to pay for the machines. This feeds back into Deputy O'Rourke's question about training for machines, reliability and so on.

The machines are the responsibility of the shops which pay for them and enter a service level agreement with the different suppliers. It is their responsibility to make sure the machines are emptied, the tickets are refilled and that they are working. We are at an 86% reliability rate for machines at the moment. I expect that to go above 90% soon.

Regarding the question about transferable credit and whether a credit note could be used if you go from one shop to another, our transferable method of credit is that you are always entitled to cash. Money is the form of transformable credit, which you can bring from one shop to another. You do not have to accept store credit.

Could you pour a bag of cans into a machine? There are machines that are shaped like washing machines. You could get a bin bag filled with 100 cans, pour them in and the machine quickly sorts them. I expect the county councils will opt for those models of machine because there is a high volume when you are going to your recycling centre.

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