Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 27:

In page 80, to delete lines 31 to 38, and substitute the following:
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This amendment seeks to pause an increase in the excise or carbon tax on consumer fuels such as petrol and diesel for the duration of 2024. It also has the effect of reducing the level of excise applied to home heating oil by more than 50% until 1 May 2024, saving households approximately €64 per tank fill. The policy objective of the carbon tax, which was announced many years ago now, was to establish a price floor on carbon-based fuels, and it is acknowledged that the carbon tax is regressive, with the cost disproportionately borne by low-income, rural and single parent households. With regard to the stated policy objective of increased carbon taxes to set a price floor on carbon-based fuels, it is now widely accepted that, as stated by the EU High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy, energy transition will be accompanied by a rise in the price of fossil fuels.

At present, Ireland has the seventh highest carbon tax in Europe and among the highest energy prices in Europe. We also know, because some people will say that without carbon taxes we will not achieve our climate change objectives, that the problem is that the debate is actually a lot deeper than that. We need to look at where we are at. Under the stewardship of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party, we have already exhausted almost 50% of the carbon budget that was set from 2021 to 2025. In the first two years almost 50% has been exhausted, so we are on track to exhaust 123% of the allocated carbon budget by 2030. By refusing to depart from the business as usual approach, the Government will almost certainly max out the 2025 carbon budget before it leaves office.

It is clear to me we cannot reduce any climate action to one single policy, with supply-side investment yielding crucial results in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We showed in our alternative budget, which may be deviating from this section, how additional investment could have been made beyond what the Government is making in areas such as deep retrofits, transition to different types of energy, afforestation and rewetting. All of that was shown in our alternative budget without the requirement to increase carbon taxes further. I am really concerned that we are missing our carbon budgets, that the Government is missing the carbon budgets it set, and that by the time it leaves office it will have exhausted the carbon budget, and yet the only thing that seems to be on target from the Government is to increase carbon taxes over and over. I would love if the Minister would release the data that underpinned the decision by Government at the time that the policy objective was to set a floor in terms of carbon pricing and where the expectation was that these products would be at the time. I expect they are way above what the policy objective was here, which was to increase prices to try to convince people to move from one type of commodity to another. This is a strong objective and one I support, but without the investment, without the carrot, and without the investment in the alternatives that are affordable and readily available, it does not work and makes families poorer. That is what this amendment is about: pausing the increases in carbon taxes.

The other part of what we propose is a significantly increasing both the revenue and capital allocations required to support households, families and workers to make the transition required to deal with climate change and biodiversity issues. I know the Government is very much wedded to this proposal but we had the experiment. Petrol prices went up to €2.20 and it did not stop people from driving. People still needed to get to hospital appointments, to travel from Gweedore to Letterkenny to work, to drop their kids to school, and to do all the a's and b's and all the necessities. What we need, and I think we all agree on this, is additional investment in rural transport, bus corridors, rail, cycle pathways and all those types of investments that are required, which the Minister will argue can only be done through carbon tax but we actually showed in our alternative budget that we would make more investment in all of these areas without carbon tax increases.