Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy. I will start with the carbon fund. There is a €2.905 million Estimate for 2023. This is for the purchase of carbon units to meet our targets for 2020. It is the final amount of money that we have to pay for not meeting our 2020 targets. To date, we have paid €117 million. It was expected that the final payment would be paid during 2022, but I believe that it will be paid in 2023 for accounting reasons. It is the last payment to meet our obligations up to 2020. I understand we had some choice as to how we obtained those carbon credits. I believe we got them through negotiation with other countries in surplus. I think the Deputy's question concerns the future of carbon credits, because we are back into this again up to 2030. Some analysis has been done on this by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. Really, it comes down to scenarios. We are now in 2023. If we meet our obligations by 2030, no payment will be due. If we do not meet them, a payment will be due. The next question concerns how much that payment would be. It depends on the future price of carbon credits, which is indeterminate at this stage. The prices have been highly volatile and have moved up by a large amount in recent years, so it is difficult to estimate how much a carbon credit would cost. However, if we meet our targets, we will not pay anything. A scenario analysis has been done by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. I am happy to share that with the Deputy.