Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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One of the reasons we are here is to put this issue into the public domain. I do not know who is watching the meeting at this hour of the evening, but they might pick up on it. When I saw the CSO's figure, I was taken aback, but when I looked at it, I understood it. We are collecting all of this revenue from the carbon tax and there is little transparency as to how the extra amount provided for in the budget will be spent next year. However, the Comptroller and Auditor General has said there is a need for a whole-of-government approach in Accounting Officers being able to demonstrate where this tax revenue will go. I am not suggesting it should be put into a separate fund or anything like it - it can be accounted for in a transparent way in the general fund operated by the Revenue Commissioners or the Central Fund - but we just want to see greater transparency. I know that in the Estimates for this year there was a move by including a schedule and an appendix to start showing where some of the revenue would be spent, but some of that is not connected to the carbon tax. Some of the items are EU-funded agriculture schemes that were introduced to provide income support for farmers and food production. Now they are being wheeled in as measures that are good for the environment. They do serve that purpose, but they were probably primarily introduced to provide income support at the beginning. Is there a further breakdown of the information available to the CSO that it could supply to us? We are not asking it to carry out any more research. We will have representatives of the Department before the committee to talk about the broader issue and some of the policy issues that have been thrown at us. We will put this one to them directly when they are before us in a couple of weeks' time.