Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I will try not to be as funny as my two colleagues about the Greens. It is amazing to see what I term the "Al Gorification" of Fianna Fáil by the Green Party. It is difficult to know who is the greenest, the republican green or the environmental green of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley.

When I came into the Chamber, Deputy Fleming was castigating Fine Gael's position on taxation, a point I will touch on briefly. Fine Gael brought down the corporation tax rate. There was no more positive action taken to drive this economy forward than the lowering of corporation tax. Lower corporation tax allows companies to come in, manufacture goods and sell them on, bringing in new money. The Government will have to wrestle with this in future because not alone are we now losing jobs to Third World countries, but we are losing them to north Wales and places of that nature.

The new CO2 taxation mechanisms for road taxation is another way to charge more in tax. It will bring in an extra €83 million in 2008, but I am sure the numbers will not stop there for 2009, 2010 and onwards. There are anomalies, with the main example being the collapse in the price of a second-hand car after the July date, which will have a catastrophic effect on those buying second-hand cars.

It is likely those cars will be bought by people less capable of buying new cars with lower emissions. Although the car will be cheaper to buy, they will end up paying more tax year on year. This will become a tax on poorer people. I do not know if the Government has taken this concern into account.

Another issue is the idea that motorists are bad people. The reality is the motorist has no genuine alternative to get around the State in terms of public transport. Outside a few rail lines, the train system is practically non-existent. The best example is the train service from the town I live in, Gorey, to Dublin. The distance is 50 miles but the service takes two and a quarter hours. Seán Kelly in his prime would have got there faster on his racing bike. It is a crazy position and there is no investment in a second line, passing bays or rail signal systems evident across the Continent and the UK.

Deputy Durkan and the Minister spoke about money, with some €992 million going back to the local authorities. County Wexford collected €25 million last year in motor taxation. In 1999, that figure was in the region of £8 million. Factoring in the exchange from punts to euro, we have doubled the amount of money being collected. It is another example of stealth taxes being brought in by the Government.

One would not mind the money being raised if it went back to the people in some form. I have another example from County Wexford, which has 1,700 miles of bluetop surface roads. We received in the region of €16.9 million in 2007 in moneys back from the Department from the €25 million collected. Counties with fewer miles of county road than Wexford, in some cases between 25% and 30% fewer, receive the same amount. I would like to see an open transparent system which tells us how much each county receives per mile of blue top county road. Wexford must make the money stretch. The objective used to be that the local authority received money back for every 15 miles but that has been stretched to 20 and in some cases 22 and 23 miles. We need to know how much each county receives per linear mile of county road. When Deputy Roche was Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government County Wicklow received more money in 2007 than Wexford yet it has 20% fewer county roads.

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