Professor John FitzGerald:

Mr. Joe Healy is wrong. Carbon taxes did make a difference and the research shows that. They would have made even more difference if they had been higher. That is our recommendation.

In respect of who is affected, the divide is not rural-urban. Research done as long ago as 1992 by Sue Scott in the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and more recent research by the ESRI shows that people on low incomes are most affected. The Government needs the revenue to compensate. It needs approximately 30% of the revenue from the carbon tax to compensate those on low incomes who would be worse off because they spend a higher share of their incomes on electricity. Commuters would also be affected.

The point of electric vehicles is that the owners will not pay carbon tax. The Government gets €5 billion in revenue from motor vehicles. The Department of Finance is considering this and may have to move to charging for road use in which case people in rural areas driving electric cars could end up spending much less than they do at present whereas people in congested urban areas could end up paying much more because they are causing congestion. This is not a rural-urban issue. It is people on a low income and the rest of the population.

On electric cars and infrastructure, the point to consider is not just whether there are two charging points in Glenties village, rather it is that people will charge their cars at home. The problem is if three neighbours think it is a great idea to have an electric car, they will blow the local system if they all try to charge together. These are complex issues. It is coming down the track quite rapidly, as Mr. Coghlan said. That is part of its success.

To respond to Senator Lombard's point that forestry would result in fewer jobs in rural areas, research done 20 years ago by Brendan Kearney and Bob O'Connor showed that more people would be employed in rural areas if there was forestry rather than beef.