Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The change to which I refer has nothing to do with reforming the position in order to meet environmental needs.

I welcome the changes relating to VRT. These changes are timely and I agree with the Ministers for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputies Ryan and Gormley, on the need to take climate change seriously. However, people should not forget that the Government produced a strategy in 2000 which advocated introducing a carbon tax by 2002, increasing investment in buses, ceasing coal use at Moneypoint by 2008, rebalancing VRT, introducing integrated traffic management and supplying 12.5% of our electricity needs from renewable energy sources by 2005. Precisely none of this has come to pass.

It is time to reform the system of VRT. Why did we not reform it before we built 500,000 additional houses, put 600,000 extra cars onto our roads and failed to take heed of patterns of energy use? The consequence is that we now face a fine because we failed dismally to meet our international obligations. We must now borrow to pay this fine. In the years since changes to VRT should have been introduced, average emissions per car have increased by 11%. The time to act was several years ago. I welcome the belated conversion of the Minister. However, as with everything else he has ever done, he acts only when he is forced to do so. He does not anticipate change or make changes in a timely manner.

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