Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The discussion is very interesting and I particularly welcome the evidence from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the ESRI. I want to go back to what Deputy Chambers said earlier about priority recommendation No. 3 from chapter 6, on which we worked long and hard hours to get agreement. The recommendation was that the Government would conduct a fuel poverty review. Will the witnesses please answer "Yes" or "No" as to whether the Departments have ignored that? Instead of obfuscating, as they did in response to the two or three parliamentary questions which I put down over the summer, please give the public a "Yes" or "No" answer on whether they had no intention of conducting a poverty review.

I then want to ask the witnesses about priority recommendation No. 4 from the same chapter. The recommendation was that the Department of Finance would commission an inquiry into the revenue that could be realised through the introduction of a carbon tax on the profits of corporations and firms directly linked to the production and sale of gas, oil, coal and other related fossil fuels. Has the Department any intention of conducting that inquiry to try to establish how it could ring-fence profits on industry for dealing with climate change?

Will the ESRI repeat the figures it gave us as to how energy poverty is measured when one moves from one band to another? I am fascinated by the figure which suggests that, depending on the criteria used, energy poverty among retired single people moves from a low percentage right up to 42.8%. That has been my experience as a Deputy. My clinic is packed every day with pensioners trying to access the grants I am told are available, such as the warmer homes scheme, retrofitting and all the rest, but it is not there for many pensioners who may be in receipt of a tiny occupation-related pension. It is not there for pensioners who are in receipt of fuel allowance but do not suffer from COPD or a lung-related disease. They may be crippled with arthritis, they may be going blind and be freezing cold all the time, but they are not getting any help and they are told not to even bother applying when it comes to schemes that are supposed to help them. They are worried about the increase in carbon tax and it incentivises them to say, "I would love to get new windows and solar panels, and get the house retrofitted", but they cannot access it. They do not have the €40,000 or €50,000 upfront to say, "There is my contribution to doing up my home, now give it back to me." It does not work like that. There is a cohort of middle Ireland caught in the middle. It includes, critically, the Traveller population, and the Traveller MABS carried out serious research into this. It also includes lone parents, pensioners and working people who are on low pay, which is most working people in this country.

We are witnessing a farcical exercise where we are told by Mr. Gerry Kenny that his job is to raise revenue through indirect taxation. We then hear from the others that there are no real facilities to help people who are going to be impacted by this carbon tax. I would remind the committee members that the vast majority of this committee recommended a carbon tax.

I have a question for the Department of Finance. We do not know by how much the Minister will put up the carbon tax. Let us say he put it up by €5 per tonne. Am I right that this would raise about €108 million? If he put it up by €10 per tonne, would that raise €216 million? How far does the Department seriously think that will go to help the most vulnerable people change their behaviour, improve their lives and get them out of fuel poverty? Will the Department please undertake that exercise which priority recommendation No. 4 asked it to do, and look at how we can tax the profits of the fossil fuel and related industries, and ring-fence that tax so they do not pass it on to the poor again, and instead use it to undo the damage they have done to the climate and to the planet?