Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Individuals can already claim a tax deduction for the costs of travel expenses necessarily incurred in the performance of the duties of their employment or office. This does not include the cost of travelling between home and work. It is a long-held view, supported by much case law, that expenses of travel between home and work are not wholly exclusively and necessarily incurred in the performance of the duties of an employment.

Deputies Fitzmaurice and Mattie McGrath appear to be suggesting a broad-based relief rather than a targeted scheme. In this regard I draw their attention to the tax expenditure guidelines issued by my Department, which stipulate that "the key rationale for Government intervention ... by way of a tax expenditure ... should be the existence of a market failure" and that a tax-based incentive should be more efficient than a direct expenditure measure. A measure such as the one proposed does not appear to address a clear market failure in circumstances where alternative measures are already available.

I appreciate that some people are using cars to travel long distances to where they work and I am aware that many might not have the public transport options that are available to people who live in our larger cities. Leaving aside the very obvious difficulties in ensuring compliance for such a scheme, providing a relief specifically for those who live further from their place of work - in this case perhaps 20 miles or more each way - would also raise questions from an environmental perspective with the kinds of changes we are looking to make in the long run.

I absolutely understand why the Deputies have put forward this case. With regard to making a change in carbon pricing - and going back to Deputy Fitzmaurice's comments - we are not looking to introduce carbon pricing or carbon taxing; it is already in place. We are looking to increase it further.

Putting in place a measure such as proposed by the amendment would also create huge challenges for us from a compliance point of view and for Revenue in trying to ascertain whether the travel had actually occurred. It would also raise the challenge that we would be putting in place a tax subsidy for journeys that are already happening. We want to provide ways to reduce the number of journeys and over time try to make more of them available to be completed through public transport than is currently the case.

I absolutely accept that the effect of the change in carbon pricing is very different for citizens who do not have many public transport options available to them. For the reasons I have outlined, however, I am regrettably not in a position where I would be able to accept amendment No. 11.