Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to go back to the beginning of Professor FitzGerald's presentation. He put a great deal of emphasis on carbon tax in Ireland and on carbon pricing under the emissions trading scheme. He advocated an increase in carbon tax to reflect the costs of climate change. As we are in the second week of our journey towards finding realistic solutions to implement on climate action, can Professor FitzGerald explain the data upon which his view of the cost of climate change is predicated? I am not just mean national figures relating to the tonnage of carbon or greenhouse gases we are emitting, but data in the international sense. The figures we are coming up with require every country in the world to take similar steps. To what extent are certain countries not being required to take these steps? I am looking for something tangible. People are watching this and we are talking about tonnage and so on. I count myself among those who might be ignorant of these issues but I would like to know how the council is arriving at these figures and how Professor FitzGerald puts a value on the price of climate change in an international context, not just a national context. Are they just comparing us to our European partners?

He stated that we should shift from taxes on labour to taxes on carbon and that there is research which shows that this is the way to go. To what in particular is he referring? What will that look like? Last week, ESRI representatives appeared before the committee. They told us that imposing carbon taxes on business will not affect exports, which does not make sense to me. Many people asked questions last week and, as far as I was concerned, that was not dealt with or answered sufficiently. We are looking at being competitive and at all the costs for businesses that feed into that. How can that not ultimately affect exports?

Professor FitzGerald also said that he served on Northern Ireland's committee on electricity. Was that the single electricity market committee or something similar?