Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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The Government has argued that the ring-fencing of this fund is to bring about behavioural change. It could not be argued that what was collected so far served that purpose because it was merely a revenue-raising exercise. The tax was introduced in 2010 and much money has been raised since that could have gone towards retrofitting, etc. When we examine this issue, it is important that we get up-to-date information regarding the fines Ireland is likely to face. The totality of the cost of moving people from their established patterns and changing their behaviour has to be factored in. It may be a case that spending to change behaviour may, ultimately, allow us to save money. The CSO does extraordinary work in collecting data. There is often a call for this type of information to allow planning for the future, but often we end up not using it when it is provided. We should be doing things like this carbon tax on the basis of evidence. If there is an argument that this tax is influencing behavioural change, it appears any change achieved is modest.