Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

The Minister made the point that no increase has taken place since 2004 but the result is that people will now be faced with a substantial increase. That will cause hardship, particularly for people on low incomes and big families, who have no option but to drive bigger cars. Unlike VRT, this tax does not take account of carbon emissions and therefore goes in the opposite direction in terms of environmental incentives. There is no incentive for more energy efficient cars and the differing increases according to the size of the car, at 9.5% and 11% respectively, leave little incentive for people to drive smaller cars. It is a tax raising measure intended to make up for the ridiculous 2% increase in the local government fund.

The same 9.5% increase is being imposed on youth, community and school buses and other large public service vehicles, so there is no incentive to improve public transport provisions in these areas or to car pool. The tax will impede efforts to reduce carbon emissions in transport.

Just over one third of the transport budget is being spent on public transport but €1.7 billion is being spent on road building, which goes against the promises made by the Green Party before it entered Government. This is a cosmetic exercise and the only green measures being introduced in this budget are the VRT changes. Overall, there are very few Green Party policies in this budget.

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