Professor John FitzGerald:

The council is unanimous that if we do not raise the carbon tax, we will go nowhere.

Therefore, if we want to deal with climate change, we need to begin with a carbon tax. If we do not do so, we can give up.

On switching from taxes on labour to taxes on carbon, I published a series of papers dealing with Ireland. I published the first of them in 1992 and the story is the same in 2018, namely, if one taxes labour, it raises the cost for employers who employ fewer people, whereas if one reduces taxes on labour, more people are employed. If one raises taxes on carbon, it reduces the amount of carbon emitted. It goes back to what Pigou said in October 1922. It does not just apply to Ireland. If one looks at the research from prominent economists in the United States, the Netherlands and Britain, it is accepted across the economics literature. Will carbon taxes affect exports? Yes, they will. However, if our competitors are other countries within the European Union and they do it at the same time - for example, Sweden has made much bigger strides than we have - the research which specifically looked at this issue has found that there will be a small effect on exports, but it is the cheapest way if we want to do something about climate change, although, of course, as a society, we may not want to do so.

On the support scheme for renewable technologies and the point about the carbon price floor which we have suggested, there is a competitiveness issue in that regard. If we were to do it as a coalition of countries within the European Union, electricity prices would go up by a bit, probably by less than what we pay in the public service obligation levy, but it would make renewables profitable. The research we have carried out suggests the carbon price floor which would be enough to produce a dramatic change in emissions from electricity generation in Ireland would add about €200 million to bills. However, because the price went up and we were not able to take account of this, renewables would be much more profitable and what we pay in the PSO levy - over €200 million; it was perhaps €400 million last year - would actually come down and there might as a result be a net gain for people.

On the different technologies used, in 1992 there was a conference on wind energy organised by the ESB, at which I said: "It is very expensive. Don't invest in it now." Former Taoiseach Charles Haughey who was chairing the conference said: "Typical economist. No vision." I was right, although he is not around for me to tell him. We have delivered a lot in a way that saves the people of Ireland money. One can move to use a technology too soon, at a time when it is very expensive. I had thought that use of solar energy was for the birds - perhaps not for the birds exactly - but it is interesting that it is now coming down in price rapidly in parts of the world where there is a lot of sunshine; it is competitive and the cheapest way of producing electricity. The problem lies in its intermittency.

There are various technologies that could be used. There is onshore and offshore wind energy. Solar energy is still expensive, but the cost is coming down fast. We may well, therefore, see solar energy being part of the mix.

On wave energy, there is a very important paper by Dr. Eleanor Denny of Trinity College Dublin which shows that one would never invest in tidal energy production owing to a technical issue. For example, the tide in Strangford Lough flows out very fast for a short period midway between high and low tide and for a lot of the time it is not flowing at all, whereas in the case of wind energy, on average, it flows 30% of the time. While they are both intermittent, tidal energy is utterly predictable. Dr. Denny came to the conclusion that unless the cost of tidal turbines was much lower than onshore wind energy, one would not do it. Wave energy production is possible, but it would also be intermittent and at the moment is incredibly expensive; therefore, it seems unlikely that it will ever be part of the solution for Ireland. As it could be part of the solution elsewhere in the world, it is something to be researched, but it is not going to be part of the solution for Ireland in the next decade or 20 years.

On biomass, the study we produced in 1995 showed that it was expensive. I have twice visited the farm in Derry of Mr. John Gilliland, former president of the Ulster Farmers Union.

He switched from growing grain to growing pollard willow. He actually made money out of the latter and was selling his woodchips to the Bogside community centre. Biomass used in heating, probably in rural areas or hotels and so on, may well be the way to go. I do not know. I am not an expert in this area and I have probably gone on for too long about it.

Roads versus public transport is an issue to look at project by project. Is a certain project justified? As for completion of the road to Mayo - is it the N4? - the stretch to Roscommon is truly awful, and the return from the completion of that stretch would undoubtedly pay off. Public transport, specifically the deregulation of buses, is much more an urban issue. Going to Galway, people are much faster taking the train, and the emissions will still be significant until the buses are decarbonised. Our first recommendation in the NDP was that Government needs to reflect appropriately the issue of climate change in its criteria for investment decision-making, which it was not doing, but in the national mitigation plan it announced it would change the methodology. If this is incorporated in the methodology, it may be that we will spend more on public transport than on roads, but I do not know what the appropriate split is, whether two thirds, one third etc. One must factor in the cost of climate change and the fact that people must get from Mayo to Dublin to the Seanad and come up with the right answer. I do not have an ideological answer to this. It is project by project.

Forestry-----