Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 17 November 2020

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed)

Photo of Verona MurphyVerona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 139:

In page 55, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following:

“35.The Minister shall, within three months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before the Oireachtas a report on the suitability and operability of a diesel rebate scheme and whether it is sufficient in compensation for the increase in carbon tax.”.

The Minister will be familiar with the matter to which this amendment relates from his conversations with the Irish Road Haulage Association, IRHA. If the Government is going to incentivise a scheme whereby the road haulage sector moves to using trucks with ultra-low emissions engines, this is what we must do. It has been presented before, not as amendment to a finance legislation, but to the Minister through lobbying by the IRHA. It is necessary that the scheme provides for all of the homes where the money will spent but nothing is being spent in the road haulage sector. The gains that could result from an air pollution and air quality perspective would be far greater if this scheme was incentivised. The Minister knows that we are moving towards Euro 6 but in this country, we have a much slower uptake. A total of 35% of vehicles are on what is called the clean Euro 6 engine while 65% are operating off Euro 2, 3 and 4 engines. There is an argument to be made in lots of other ways but there would be a higher and faster return if this scheme was incentivised.

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