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

Yes. Was it the Garrett FitzGerald Government that fell over VAT on children's shoes? I am not sure about the Minister's take on the historical debate around climate change and the issues around addressing it or failing to address it and whether he is right that it is a carbon tax. However, if the energy price crisis now unfolding for people continues at the current pace because they cannot do anything to opt for alternatives as those alternatives do not exist then he may have a very serious political problem. Ultimately, the answer is to move away from dependence on fossil fuels, which me must do rapidly to address the climate crisis, and ideally to have more sustainable sources of energy that do not damage the environment and which are not vulnerable to the swings and roundabouts of the market. We need to have the ability to produce our own energy that is in stable supply, is not too expensive and does not pollute and destroy the environment for the future. However, in the meantime, if the policy pursued by the Government is one that ends up punishing the least well-off and those least capable of dealing with the transition, due to the tenure of their homes, their income levels, how the transport issue impacts on them or whatever, I tell the Minister the Government will sabotage efforts to deal with the climate.

We know that some of the more dark political forces in this world have actively tried to turn people against the climate action agenda. Pretty much everyone in here agrees that we need to pursue climate action vigorously in order to address this existential crisis. The biggest danger for us in trying to address the climate crisis - I really mean this and it is not rhetorical flourish - is the fear that fairly dark and dangerous political forces might turn people against the climate agenda and use the fact that it is economically punishing them in order to gain traction for climate scepticism. This should not be a surprise to us.

The Minister has to do something about the energy price hikes. I accept what he said to the effect that the carbon tax is only part of it, but it does add insult to injury in a situation where people are seeing price hikes of hundreds of euros. There is a big distinction between discretionary spending and non-discretionary spending. It seems as if the Government's approach to carbon taxes does not really see this distinction. It is not discretionary for people to heat their homes. Earlier, the Minister told me to tell the woman I spoke about that we are putting money into retrofitting her home. In fact, I did say that to her. I told here there was a retrofit programme but that I had absolutely no idea when her home would be retrofitted. I can take a pretty damn good guess that it will not be for a few years. I hope I am wrong and that when I speak to the council this week I will be told it will go straight down and do the windows and doors. I strongly suspect that this is not the answer I will get, however.

The promise is that at some time it will happen. In our area, 1% of the relevant properties are being done per year. It seems to be the pattern in the Dublin councils that 1% of the social housing stock is being done each year. This is just not good enough. Potentially, the woman to whom I refer could be waiting ten or 15 years at this rate. It will be cold comfort to her, to use a really bad pun, that her doors and windows will be insulated in ten or 15 years' time but that, in the meantime, she has to suck up shockingly high energy costs and, perhaps, get blamed for being a climate laggard because she is not reducing her CO2 emissions. Others who can afford to do this have done it.

It is about the level of comfort. I find that ironic. This is why I am not sure about price signals when it comes to these kinds of usages of CO2. In our budget submissions, we proactively proposed carbon-type taxes on aviation, some of the polluting sectors in the economy and the profits of those sectors that make money from pollution. When we are speaking about expenditures that people have no choice but to make in order to live their lives, and stating that putting a price signal on them will change their behaviour, I do not buy it unless there are alternatives. I suggest the Minister takes seriously the warning that if we get this wrong and do not have a just transition, then we may turn off the climate action agenda significant sections of the population and the people we need on our side to make the necessary climate changes and to carry through the climate action we need to deal with the climate crisis. This would be very dangerous.