Mr. Ciarán Nugent:

I will take the question on carbon tax. As we said earlier, if it is designed correctly, there should be a net gain for the bottom households if every man, woman and child in the country gets the same dividend. An Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, report said a couple of weeks ago that the average house in the bottom 10% is likely to be looking at a €2 per week increase in their consumption bundle and it is about €3 for the next decile. That is not huge but people are still living on the margins and there is an issue there if that comes in the form of a cheque at Christmas, although that might also be something people will buy into.

The carbon tax will not work unless there are viable alternatives and any retrofit programme that is successful in any way will be a function of resources and political will. We have had very little so far in terms of hitting targets that have been set up. There are other ways we could reduce the impact on low to middle income families as part of a wider investment package. Public transport would be one of the big areas. We should seriously ramp up investment in public transport and have viable options for families who probably have to have a car but cannot afford it and other people in that space. The carbon tax by itself will not bring about the change that we need to bring about to hit our targets and to avert climate catastrophe.