Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentations. This is a complex issue, primarily because we seem to be in the early stages of developing this policy.

Where are we with this undertaking from a process perspective? How will this committee be asked to engage in the future? Has the Department done any analysis on the potential impact of these proposals? Regarding the emissions trading system, ETS, for example, if we are going to move non-ETS industries over into a European ETS scheme, what will be the cost in euro of doing that? From an accounting perspective, the Department must have some idea at this stage of what such a change would mean in the context of transport and buildings.

I may be wrong about this point, but the suggestion seems to be that we will be moving industries and sectors now participating in our carbon tax scheme over into a European tax scheme. In that context, it will then be directed at a European level how those moneys will be spent when the funds come back to Ireland through the social fund. Does the Department have concerns regarding subsidiarity when it comes to this aspect? I ask that because I assume that we are already collecting carbon taxes from these industries and that revenue will now go to Europe and then be funnelled back to us, but with specific conditions attached concerning how we can spend the money. Has any work or analysis been done on that aspect of this process? There is a broader concern in this respect regarding the principle of subsidiarity, the collection of taxes and how we determine where we are spending our money.

Those are most of my points. I am interested in how we can input into this process, the level of analysis that has been done and if the committee can see that analysis. Do we have any authority or remit in directing that work? It would be interesting to know some of that information.