Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment. Whatever about the principle of a carbon tax, this provision impacts disproportionately on poor people and those on low incomes. The application of the tax as a blunt instrument means it takes no account of ability to pay. We already have a significant fuel poverty problem. If the Government was serious about the issue and took any account of ability to pay, it would have introduced compensating measures on the welfare side. Unfortunately, it has not done so. Like so many other provisions in the recent budget and in keeping with the main thrust of budgetary policy in recent times, it is an across the board measure. Significant and growing numbers of people are under immense presssure to keep body and soul together in current circumstances. They cannot afford the extra burden this measure imposes. There will be an increased problem of fuel poverty and more and more people will not have sufficient heat in their homes, with the attendant consequences for health and premature deaths. It is completely unacceptable that this blunt instrument will be used in this way.

In recent years there was a commitment to poverty eradication and the equality proofing of new taxation measures. I ask the officials, through the Minister of State, Deputy Alex White, if there has been any such proofing on a measure which will have a significant impact on people who simply cannot afford any more taxes and cannot, as it stands, afford to heat their homes. It will also impose significant additional costs on organisations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul which is already under enormous pressure to help the growing numbers of people who do not have the wherewithal to survive with basic dignity. Has any ruler been run over the measure to gauge its impact from an equality or poverty eradication point of view? I appeal to the Minister of State, given his ministerial role in the Department of Health, to reconsider the measure which will have very negative impacts on a group of people who are already under severe pressure.

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