Professor John FitzGerald:

I have lived with two politicians in my life and I decided I did not want that career. That is Senator Paul Daly's career. It is the Senator's job to sell. When I took on this job, I was not going to go out and sell. Our job is to provide advice. However, having worked in the research area for 30 years, I would say the Senator is quite right that we need to explain to the wider public the nature of the research and the nature of the task. Essentially, we must try to do that.

I picked the example of a mythical Mrs. Murphy. One must be able to say to somebody, as I have done, that it is very disruptive to one's life but that it will actually save him or her money. It will not save a person money unless the carbon tax is there. The carbon tax has to come first and then one can say to people that they can save money. If one says to people to do it now and that the Oireachtas will introduce a carbon tax in ten years' time and they will save money then, for somebody of my age that will not make a difference. One has got to say that it will make a difference today.

I had a grand-aunt who was badly off but who was left a small amount of money in 1920. She decided to go to Cambridge to read economics. She put herself through Cambridge and graduated in 1923. She did not get a degree, because they did not give degrees to women in Cambridge until after the war, but I have her very good notes on the lectures from Professor Pigou, a famous economist, which were delivered in October and November 1922. One hundred years ago, the answer was one taxes pollution if one wants people to change. It is the same today. We have a problem with climate deniers and the science on how one makes people change in economics is unanimous. One must begin with a carbon tax but, as I explained, it is only a beginning. If it is not there, nobody will change. One will be much less effective unless one brings in other policies. In the case of Mrs. Murphy, she will need a lot of help in changing through other schemes.

On the point the Senator made on transport, that is why I said €30 a tonne in the next budget. Somebody who the committee will hear from next week may advise making it much bigger. I would be happy if we did more but I am looking at it in terms of deliverables. If we went to €80 a tonne, which would make a different in transport - it would give a big push to electric cars immediately - it would make a substantial difference to the cost of motoring but my guess is that one would find that very difficult to do. That is why we say €30 a tonne. We need a much higher price to reflect the damage that we are doing.

In terms of what was referred to as incentives rather than sticks, the problem is that the money has to be raised and we are talking about a lot of money being spent. In terms of social housing, I said the bill could be €5 billion for social housing. It is the landlord's job to spend it and the Government will have to raise the money somewhere else. Going back to Pigou, unless one uses sticks as well as carrots, one is going nowhere. The State will not be able to finance the change. Saying to everybody in Ireland that they will pay for their houses and their electric cars by not raising any taxes on them is not sustainable. As would be asked in the Department of Finance, where I worked for 12 years at the beginning of my career and which, like the Jesuits, gets one at a young and impressionable age and has one for life, "Where is the money going to come from?"

On agriculture and milk, I am feeling my way. We will discuss this over the autumn. Is there a solution for agriculture? Agriculture will have to make major changes but given that milk seems to be most profitable for farmers, can we find a model which is consistent with decarbonising Ireland which leaves farmers doing what is profitable - we have seen a substantial increase in milk production - but which makes other changes which will offset that in areas in which farmers are not making much money?

Is there such a model? I am not saying there is, but there may be a way of doing this. Agriculture changes. There may be a model out of which farmers will do reasonably well and out of which climate will do very well. I do not have the plan but it is hoped that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will come up with it.