Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will not ask the Taoiseach what will or will not be in the budget but I will ask him about the reckless preparation for a budget that it is intended will contain a carbon tax. Priority recommendation No. 3 of the Joint Committee on Climate Action's report, which was reached after painstaking negotiations and debates and having had to return to this issue, states:

Starting immediately upon publication of this report –

a) The Government should conduct a review to be completed by June 2019 into the most appropriate measure of, and the extent and nature of fuel poverty across all cohorts and to include in this review the short, medium and long-term impact on fuel poverty of the options for increasing the carbon tax.

This has not been done. I submitted two parliamentary questions on this matter over the summer and the clerk of the committee has told me there is no sign of any action being taken on fuel poverty. I believe fuel poverty extends far beyond the definition of those in receipt of the fuel allowance. For example, does the definition cover the case of Clare Casey who worked for years cleaning the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and who was told last week by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, that she should not even bother applying for a grant to have her windows replaced because her income is about €10 a week above the threshold that would give her access to the fuel allowance? Tens of thousands of people will be hit by a reckless carbon tax.

The reckless preparation for the budget is shown by the failure to conduct the recommended review, on which there was cross-party agreement. The committee sat day and night trying to agree the wording which I just read out. Not a single thing has been done about the review, apart from the Minister issuing a reply to me that he is involved in a project to develop energy poverty indicators. That reply is meaningless. The budget will be reckless if it does not deal with this issue.

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