Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

It is a discretionary tax in that respect. We are all open to environmental initiatives. If someone can think up a way whereby €1 billion euro can be discarded, just like that, it would be interesting to know how the public services he or she wants can be maintained. We cannot have it every way. There are environmental initiatives to be looked at and we can look at this one. However, as Minister for Finance, I am entitled to make the point that there are revenue implications here which must be considered.

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