Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will boil down to the human level the question Deputy Doherty has outlined very well about the rationale for carbon tax and what it is intended to achieve. I got a call this week from somebody who lives in a council house in which the windows and doors are completely inadequate to insulate the house against the cold weather. She moved into the house just a while ago. The whole row of houses is in that condition, and the residents have to blast the heat to keep themselves warm at a level at which somebody who has a well-insulated home and the right to insulate his or her home does not have to do. Tenants in the private rented sector and council tenants have no right to do that. It is not allowed. Also, in many cases they would not be able to afford to do so even if they did have that right. They must, therefore, expend far more money to heat their homes. The woman who contacted me described how, as the cold weather begins to set in, the cost of keeping the heat on in her house has already completely outstripped her weekly budget.

In my area 1% of the social housing stock will be retrofitted next year and approximately 1% was retrofitted last year. That is about 40 houses, and there is no indication at all that retrofitting will ramp up much beyond that. It is worth saying that in the Government's announcements on upscaling the retrofitting of homes, it anticipates, I think I am right in saying, only just over 35,000 homes by 2030. That is out of a total social housing stock of 137,000. The likelihood, therefore, is that many people in either social housing that will not be retrofitted for years or private rented accommodation, where it is up to the landlord, will be pumping money into keeping their homes warm, which they have absolutely no choice about doing, for their own health and well-being, and they will suffer the consequences.

Some of those people will get fuel allowances but many of them will not. The woman I spoke to described the draught coming through the door and windows. In that situation, one is just throwing good money after bad to try to keep the place warm. The heat is going straight out under the door or through the windows, which need to be fixed. The fuel allowance increases will not cover the cost and many people will not get the fuel allowance anyway. People who are working and have an income above a certain threshold will not be entitled to the fuel allowance. That is not just transition. Let us be honest about it. It is unfair to penalise that group of people or to imagine that by increasing the price via carbon tax, they will be forced to change their behaviour when they simply cannot do it.

One could give many other examples. Public transport in particular areas is an obvious example. I do not mean rural areas in particular, although they are particularly badly hit by a lack of public transport, but so too are suburbs. It is a significant issue. Certain areas are not well served by public transport. Indeed, there is often pressure to cut back on public transport services in those areas because they are not considered commercially viable and so on. Therefore, the opportunity for people who are elderly or have mobility problems to get out of their cars is not there. They are unable to get to hospital or the shops without their cars. It is in that context we are saying this tax is unfair and the Minister needs to look at it again, particularly given the massive hikes in energy prices that are currently taking place. I would be interested to hear how the Minister responds. What would he say to the woman who phoned me up in that situation? She is now going to face excessive bills because the Government thinks it is acceptable to increase carbon tax this year.