John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My amendment and Deputy O'Dea's amendment are similar in some ways. Deputy O'Dea's amendment focuses on low-income families but I have come at this from the angle of people in receipt of the fuel allowance. We know the impact the carbon tax will have on people as it is not new. It has been in place for a number of years.

By and large, they live in poor accommodation that may be badly insulated, that has little or no central heating and windows that are not in a good state of repair. This affects local authority houses but also the private rental sector. While we acknowledge there are some good landlords, there also some bad landlords in receipt of substantial amounts of State funding, whether through the rental accommodation scheme, the housing assistance payment or some other form of State assistance. Carbon tax increased this year and it will continue to increase in the coming years. This will disproportionately affect people in the situations to which I refer.

Other Deputies and parties have looked for an assessment to be carried out. When I raised the matter previously with the Minister, she stated that it was not really her responsibility and she kicked it over to Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton. There must be an onus on the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection to carry out this assessment, however. I specifically honed in on people in receipt of the fuel allowance. I take the point Deputy O’Dea made. I am happy to meet him to work on a formula on which we could jointly agree. Leaving aside the wording, we need this assessment to be carried out. Otherwise, a €2 carbon tax rise does not take on board the massive rise in fuel costs over the past several years and into the future.