Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is true.

The next item is the work programme, which is displayed on the screen. Today, we have the financial statements for the National Transport Authority. Next week, we will have Caranua before the committee and the week after that, we will have the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine in to deal with forestry grants. On 31 October, we will have the Courts Service before the committee. The Dáil is not scheduled to sit that week, but as it is a key week in the Brexit process, we do not know if the Dáil will sit. If it does, we will have the Courts Service before us.

The following week, on 7 November, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection will be here to discuss the Social Insurance Fund. The issue of the public services card will obviously be raised at that meeting. On 14 November, we have provisionally arranged a meeting with the Office of Public Works. On 21 November, we will have the Charities Regulator before us. On 28 November, we will discuss the Comptroller and Auditor General's report regarding the development of primary care centres; that relates to the HSE in a big way. The following week, we will have the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. There will also be two meetings involving the HSE and the Department of Health. On 12 December, we will have Pobal.

As I said when discussing the minutes, we noted letters from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment the last day. The Comptroller and Auditor General has a chapter in his report relating to greenhouse gases and he highlighted the issue of carbon taxes. As Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, I can think of no other issue that falls more within the committee's remit than carbon taxes. There is much talk about ring-fencing the €90 million in carbon taxes so that we know how it is spent. That overlooks the fact that over €400 million was raised in carbon tax last year. I do not know how that money was spent. The Comptroller and Auditor General has said it is not transparent across any Departments how the carbon tax collected to date has been spent. Page 141 of his report deals with carbon tax receipts from 2010 to 2018. The chart shows that receipts averaged €300 million per annum. Well over €3 billion has been collected in carbon tax since 2010. The Departments of Communications, Climate Action and Environment and Public Expenditure and Reform need to let us know where that money was spent. It would be shameful to think that we have collected this carbon tax and it has not been spent on reducing CO2 emissions.

It appears there is no system in Government showing where this money has been spent, which is not good enough. The Committee of Public Accounts will not accept taxes being collected for a particular purpose when nobody can say if it has been used for that purpose. It goes into the general tax take; I do not mind that. If €450 million is collected, we want to know where it is going and especially where it went this year and last year.

The Central Statistics Office, CSO, published a report earlier this summer entitled, Fossil Fuels and Similar Subsidies 2012-2016. We might write to the CSO asking if it has any further information that could assist us on this. That report stated that €4.1 billion of taxpayers' money had been spent on "potentially environmentally damaging subsidies" and revenue foregone each year. Some of the subsidies to the various organisations are necessary because without them it would cause severe financial difficulty. It might be to the hauliers and some of it might relate to the fuel allowance. We are not discussing the policy but the point is that rather than collecting carbon tax and giving money to support people to continue burning turf, coal and other fossil fuel, we should be more proactive and use the money to reduce people's dependence on turf and coal, thereby reducing CO2 emissions.

The CSO report is very interesting.

I find it strange that we seem to be collecting up to €400 million a year in carbon tax, yet taxpayers are spending €4.1 billion on what the CSO calls "environmentally damaging subsidies and taxes foregone". That seems a total contradiction. A large amount of money was collected in recent years but nobody can tell us how it was spent. It is the job of this committee to find out where that money went. We will be calling in the Department urgently, as well as the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We have a busy schedule, so we may need to have a special meeting on a Tuesday. People want to know where the money collected in carbon taxes is going. That is my observation. I will take a comment, but I will be pushing for a special meeting on this issue. I do not want to knock something else off of the schedule, but this is a major issue. Lest people ask why this committee is discussing carbon tax, we are doing this because many billions of euro have been collected under that heading in recent years. We do not know, however, where that money goes and we are going to find out. I call Deputy MacSharry first, and then Deputy Cullinane.