Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If the Minister is talking about ring-fencing this tax, does he have the necessary statutory instruments to allow him to do so? It has not been done before. Hypothecation is not done in the context of the tax code. We have heard the Taoiseach talking about how the money is going to be ring-fenced. Is it going to be ring-fenced? Does the Minister have a statutory instrument to ring-fence this tax for climate change measures?

The Minister knows as well as I that a Government can raise taxes to achieve one of two purposes, namely, raise more revenue, which is completely justifiable, or effect behavioural change. With carbon taxes, it should only be about behavioural change. The reality is that we already have a carbon tax which was introduced in 2015 and brings in €400 million per year. It has not effected behavioural change and the Government has remained a laggard when it comes to climate action. We can see that from the targets that we are missing spectacularly. Behavioural change requires investment. It requires alternatives. The reality is there is no alternative being provided by this Government. It is not investing the necessary resources that we need, for example, in terms of public transport, energy efficiency or retrofitting. People who are going to be hit the worst as a result of this measure, going back to the ESRI research, namely, those on the lowest incomes, families with poor insulation and families in rural communities, need to have the alternatives. This is simply penny-pinching from people's pockets without having due regard to actually creating the alteratives that would be there. Can the Minister answer some of these questions, particularly in respect of whether he has the necessary tools to hypothecate this tax?

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