Mr. Paul Morrin:

Fossil fuels and similar subsidies, which go beyond fossil fuels.

There is a fair bit of detail in my statement. I will try to be brief. Fossil fuel subsidies are a sustainable development goal, SDG, indicator. The rationale behind the SDG indicator 12.c is to reduce "inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption" by restructuring taxation to reflect environmental impacts. A UN environment report recommended that data for the SDG indicators should be compiled using a combination of direct transfers, price supports and tax expenditure, which is consistent with the approach followed by the CSO in its research paper.

Data on direct supports were mainly obtained from Government appropriation accounts, the annual accounts of Government Departments and agencies and through direct requests to a Department or organisation. Indirect supports are also known as tax expenditures. A tax expenditure is defined under Irish legislation as a transfer of public resources that is achieved by either reducing obligations with respect to a benchmark tax or provisions of tax legislation that reduce or postpone revenue for a comparatively narrow population of taxpayers relative to the tax base. Tax expenditures are defined relative to a system of benchmark taxes. The reduced excise duty on auto diesel is compared with that for petrol. Data on tax expenditures were obtained from Revenue or estimated using information from Revenue.

The CSO estimated that the total amount of fossil fuels and similar subsidies in 2016 was €4.1 billion, comprised of €2.5 billion of fossil fuel supports and €1.6 billion of other supports. The fossil fuel supports comprised €534 million of fossil fuel subsidies and almost €2 billion in indirect fossil fuel supports in 2016. It is broadly recognised that, aside from the environmental impact, these supports can have important social and economic purposes while being detrimental to the environment. For example, agricultural subsidies accounted for €1.5 billion of the €4.1 billion total in 2016 but are recognised as important supports for the rural economy. That is the key category that the Chairman is talking about.

EUROSTAT is developing a new module on potentially environmentally harmful subsidies. The new module builds upon work done by the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, the International Energy Agency and the International Monetary Fund. The work undertaken by the CSO to date in this field of study is a work in progress and, for that reason, it was published as a research paper. When the methodology for the new EUROSTAT module has been finalised, the CSO will review the approach taken in the research paper to ensure that our methodology is consistent with the EU requirements being developed by EUROSTAT in consultation with member states, including Ireland.

The legal basis for the environmental taxes statistical release is included in the statement. Environmental taxes are levied on something that has a proven specific negative impact on the environment. Examples include the plastic bag levy, the vehicle registration tax and the carbon tax. Some €235 million was collected under the carbon tax in 2010, which increased to €431 million in 2018. Total environmental taxes in 2018 were just over €5 billion and constituted 7.1% of the total amount collected under all taxes.

The carbon tax and carbon credits are both classified as environmental taxes. The CSO uses various data sources to disaggregate these taxes with the NACE industrial classification, which includes households as an additional sector. In the period from 2010 to 2018, €33.5 billion was collected from both carbon taxes. The Revenue Commissioners publish the amount of carbon taxes collected for each fuel. In 2018, 42% of carbon taxes were collected for road transport diesel and 11% of carbon taxes were for petrol, so road transport accounts for 53% of the total. Kerosene accounted for a further 14%, marked gas oil for 13%, natural gas for 12% and solid fuels for 6%.

The environmental subsidies and similar transfers release is compiled in accordance with EUROSTAT methodological guidelines. The module has not yet been included in the EU regulation. Environmental subsidies are intended to support activities that protect the environment or reduce the use and extraction of natural resources. Examples include the capital investment plan for wastewater treatment and the organic farming scheme. Total environmental subsidies paid in 2017 were €895 million. Production of energy from renewable resources accounted for 32% of the total paid out. Wastewater management accounted for 26%, protection of biodiversity accounted for 23% and heat and energy saving subsidies for 9%.

The legal basis for the environmental accounts air emissions statistical release is provided in the statement. The CSO obtained the air emissions inventories data from the Environmental Protection Agency and disaggregate them by NACE sector as required by EUROSTAT. In each of the years from 2007 to 2016, households accounted for between 22% and 24% of total greenhouse gas emissions. In absolute terms, household emissions decreased from 15.4 million tonnes of carbon equivalent in 2008 to 12.7 million tonnes in 2014 before increasing to 13.5 million tonnes in 2016.

The final release that I will describe is the domestic building energy rating statistical release. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland provides the CSO with a file containing the details of all domestic building energy rating audits and the CSO publishes them quarterly. Around half of the total number of dwellings in the State have had a BER audit but the requirements of the scheme mean that some types of dwellings are under-represented, such as older rural houses that are not being sold or rented. The BER data show how ratings vary by county, period of construction, type of building and the type of main space heating fuel. Counties Longford, Offaly, Westmeath, Tipperary, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, and Cavan have the highest proportions of G-rated dwellings, which is the lowest category. An analysis of the BER ratings for households using peat as their main space fuel shows that 42% had a G rating. The proportion of G ratings for other solid fuels were lower, at 29% to 38%.