Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

A carbon levy can be used to change household and business behaviour, incentivising greater energy efficiency in our homes and the use of cleaner, greener technologies that will lessen our energy dependence.

The difficult decisions that will be announced in the budget are in part attributable to the fact that we are too dependent on transactional consumption taxes such as stamp duty and VAT to pay for the services the Government provides. When the economy slows drastically, so does the revenue from consumption taxes. A carbon levy will broaden the tax base, stabilising the source of money used to pay for State services. By contrast with income tax, which as a tax on labour can have the effect of discouraging employment, a carbon levy taxes the bad stuff, so to speak, and will gradually move us toward low-carbon alternatives.

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