Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

If a carbon tax Bill came before this House, my party would support it completely. Unfortunately, this is not a carbon tax but rather a revenue-raising measure. It has nothing whatever to do with saving the planet. This measure will hit low-income families disproportionately and in many cases, pensioners will have a choice between heat and food. If this were a real carbon tax, incentives would have been put in place to try to persuade people to use alternative measures.

For example, this will be a significant financial imposition on rural dwellers as they have no public transport. Every time they get into their cars to travel to the city or work, they will pay additional money to this revenue-raising measure which has nothing to do with carbon. It is a Green Party cop-out. If there is a fig leaf, it is pretty withered and would hide very little behind it at this stage.

It is most unfortunate that the Greens are using this opportunity in Government to fool the public by presenting this as a carbon tax. It is just a tax and I will be opposing it.

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