Mr. Frank Maughan:

Quite a lot of work has been done in recent years by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, in looking at a number of aspects of the carbon tax, such as the potential contribution to emissions savings, the potential impact on different household income categories and the buoyancy of carbon tax revenue over time. That is being done based on models of the Irish economy the ESRI has. I would be cautious about inferring from those numbers because carbon tax is always only one of a number of policy tools in place across government to try to reduce emissions in the sectors on which it is levied. You would expect to see the revenue raised on the carbon tax being susceptible to reductions in emissions over the coming years, relative to how quickly emissions are reduced, be it in our buildings or transport use, and relative to the growth of the economy.

A number of variables inform this and they are changing all the time in terms of the outlook for the economy, progress in reducing our emissions in the sectors concerned and the rate at which the carbon tax is applied. Work has been done, from which the ESRI has produced a number of publications. There is an overall estimate for total carbon tax revenues for the decade, which is published in the programme for Government, as the Deputies will probably be aware, but that is just an estimate and the year-on-year revenues are subject to all those variables I mentioned.