Ms Marie Donnelly:

Therefore, the Deputy will have to bear with me. The price of carbon covers utilities and heavy industry polluters. It languished at €4 to €5 per tonne for many years. With the clean energy package coming through, it has gone up to around €20 per tonne. Depending on how the predictions are viewed, it should go to €30 per tonne in the next while and the upward trend could go as high as €50 or €60. From the modelling, a price of €50 per tonne would make coal totally uncompetitive, but we do not know if we will get to that stage. The concern is that, at €50 per tonne, if companies were manufacturing steel in Europe, that price would make them very uncompetitive on the global market. That is why I am concerned about having utilities and heavy duty industry in the same system because what is sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander in this instance, but that is just my personal view.

The United Kingdom has a carbon tax which started at £12 but which will increase progressively to about £50. It is included in its legislation; it is happening and the reason it will divest from coal in 2025. In France there is-----