Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

I have two points. The Minister mentioned that he is bringing in a new category A1 for zero-emissions electric vehicles. The example I gave of an extra €3,600 of notional pay as a result in benefit-in-kind is for that category of car. If it was another category of car, it would actually be higher. However, as the Minister said to Deputy Farrell, on the basis of the Schedule, somebody driving a category D car would actually pay a lower percentage if they increase their mileage compared with somebody driving an A1 car on lower mileage. There are anomalies there when we look at it from an environmental point of view. A category D car is obviously one that emits far more carbon. I wanted to make that point first in relation to the tax increase that we are seeing here, which is not a couple of hundred euro. We are talking about thousands here, which is a significant amount for individuals to pay over the next number of years.

When the Minister says the reduction has been deferred for a number of years, the point I would make is that even if this amendment were to be accepted, we would still see a reduction in the OMV. The sliding scale is already there in the legislation. It is going down from €30,000 to €20,000 to €10,000. That is happening anyway. The point is that this temporary additional reduction was brought in. When this was attempted initially, people obviously identified that they would be hit with serious tax bills. Most people will not notice this, but it is mad when we think about what is happening. The Minister has introduced a tax package of €2.5 billion for a full year. That is the full-year effect of the package contained within this Bill. The Minister introduced a budget of €9.4 billion.

This is just another example of how people are going to be worse off next year than they were the previous year or the year after. There are plenty of examples of that in this Bill. I think it is the wrong approach to take, that we would start to see a lowering of this €10,000 temporary reduction from 2027. The scale that we have needs to be reassessed. I made the point about the 1 million electric vehicles. I do not think we are anywhere on target to meet that policy objective, which is s noble one, but really there is no point in plucking numbers out of the sky, saying this is what we are going to do, and then not planning to do it. This is a tax increase on people on drive, not just people who drive electric vehicles, but it is also a tax increase on people who drive electric vehicles at a time when we are really trying to encourage them and businesses to move in that direction, because businesses are involved in buying them in the first instance.