Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said that EU member states had already introduced restrictions on the sale of cosmetic products containing microbeads.

His Microbeads Prohibition Bill, however, “extends to cover household and industrial cleaning products containing plastic microbeads, which no other EU member state has done to date”.

The bill proposes an offence of manufacturing, supplying or selling products containing plastic microbeads – used in soaps, shower gels and facial scrubs as well as some toothpastes.

“This is due to their potential for environmental harm as microplastic litter in marine and freshwater environments,” Mr Murphy said.

He said the bill encompasses products designed to be rinsed or washed off down the drain but not “leave-on” or “wear-off” products that are not designed to be washed off with water.

“While many people wipe off such products and then discard the wipes down the drain, they are not supposed to do this,” he said.

Labour TD Sean Sherlock expressed worry that the bill was not “going the whole hog” on banning microbeads by including an exception for wear-off products.

“If we have to wait for a six-year lead-in time for restricting leave-on cosmetic products” to give companies time for product reformulation then, he said, “we have not fully tackled the problem”.