Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will read the paragraph in front of us on the screen. There is a footnote stating that a European Commission report from 2017 entitled "Analysis of the use of Auction Revenues by the Member States" noted that Ireland is one of the ten member states where revenue raised through the auction of allowances is not earmarked or ring fenced in its budget and that along with the other nine member states, Ireland was also deemed to provide a low level of detail on the application of revenue to projects aimed at reducing emissions. That is why we are here. We want to get to the point where we are not in the bottom league within the EU when it comes to accounting for it. That was stated by the EU two and a half years ago and we are here today not having advanced an awful lot since then. This is all we want to achieve.

In respect of the €570 million that was collected in 2018, the €440 million collected in carbon tax was read out. We also received €140 million in receipts from the emissions trading scheme. We want to bring the public with us. This is the message I am bringing back. We want to bring the public on the right road on this. I am putting the responsibility on the Department as the lead Department in respect of climate change. Revenue will appear before us next week when we can ask it about the revenue and we can talk to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform but the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment is the one deemed to be the climate change Department. All I am saying is that the public gets very cynical when it is told that €570 million was received in 2018 and we cannot document that it went on climate change initiatives. It would make the job of bringing the public around to the idea of an extra tax a whole lot easier if it could be assured that not just a marginal increase in tax but all of the carbon tax was going on climate change initiatives. People would buy into it but when they see that it is just a wheeze and that we are collecting carbon tax but will not really show how it is being spent, it damages the national effort to bring people around on this issue. I worry that it could lead to a backlash against a carbon tax. We saw it with water charges because people just saw them as a mechanism for collecting money and paying for meters. They did not necessarily see them as improving the water infrastructure because they were not connected. One was just to collect money and pay for the installation of meters to a large extent. The people will have a difficulty with the carbon tax. We want all this to be clear, transparent and upfront so that if the public is told next year that €500 million is being collected, it knows it will be spent on climate change initiatives. I have great faith in the Irish people and believe that they will accept that without a quibble but if they are told it is being collected but the Department will only show them where a tiny percentage of it is going, they will not come along fully.

One of the reasons why we have had these hearings relates to when the CSO appeared before us recently. We found it slightly unusual that when it appeared before us, the CSO document stated that some publicly funded supports have a negative impact on the environment. I know there are other objectives relating to fuel poverty. The CSO stated that a subsidy is classified as potentially environmentally damaging if it is likely to incentivise behaviour that could be damaging to the environment irrespective of the importance of other policy purposes. Some people might say it is an academic argument but we all know that if we increase carbon tax, raise money from it and hand some of the proceeds back by way of a fuel allowance, we will increase CO2 emissions by burning oil, gas, coal or turf. The CSO states that this will have a detrimental effect. I know it costs money but the CSO is saying that it would better if the funds collected were spent on the retrofitting and home heating scheme rather than on giving allowances to people to allow them continue to burn fossil fuels. The CSO is saying that some of what is happening here is detrimental to the environment. Is Mr. Carroll familiar with that document?