Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We proposed the stamp duty on commercial property in our budget submission. Whether that is where the Minister got it from I do not know but we proposed it the year before he introduced it. The idea that we are not willing to make, or side with the Government in making, radical proposals in this area is unfair. I am just pointing out to the Minister that there is no good evidence for carbon tax but there is very strong evidence that it becomes a substitute for doing things that would be radical and make a significant impact on carbon emissions, where we have failed dramatically. He did not respond to the point that other areas of industrial policy are going away from diverting our economy away from reliance on sectors that dramatically contribute to our poor performance on CO2 emissions.