David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Martin Kenny. I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate. It is telling that approximately 30 seconds into his contribution, the Minister mentioned carbon taxes and carbon pricing. It is regrettable that, from the Government's perspective and from that of others in political circles, the whole debate on climate action is framed around carbon tax increases as if they constitute a panacea. There is not agreement in this House on increasing carbon taxes but there is agreement from all of the experts - the Minister mentioned one - that carbon taxes are regressive. That was restated by the Department of Finance, the ESRI and even the Minister for Finance. If carbon taxation is regressive that is the first problem, but the bigger problem is that it does not work in the sense that it does not change people's behaviour unless alternatives are in place. Before the Minister comes back and states that Sinn Féin and others are against levies or taxes that are progressive and change people's behaviour, we supported the sugar tax and in fact called for it over many years, and we supported the plastic bag levy. We did so because such measures work. People have obvious alternatives that they can use. Carbon tax increases will raise revenue but the vast majority of people cannot buy one of the 1 million electric cars that the Government says will be on the roads over the next ten years - this target will be impossible to achieve - or pay for deep retrofits of their homes in the way those with deep pockets can. It is not going to be something that they can mitigate, which means all we are doing is increasing their cost of living and not dealing with the problems at all.

There are solutions of course. If we are really serious about climate action, it would be much more effective to begin with the alternatives. The starting point should be public transport. There are a lot of parts of the country that do not have proper public transport. There needs to be joined-up thinking in terms of the national planning framework. I support many elements of Project Ireland 2040, the national planning strategy which looks at regional cities, namely, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. I do not see any evidence of joined-up thinking in the context of having integrated transport hubs or strategies for those cities and looking ahead to 20 years from now when the population targets that are set have been achieved and then having the proper transport systems in place.

I do not see the investment in public transport that is necessary and that needs to happen in order to facilitate this.

I also do not see the type of retrofitting programmes, such as those which are needed for older people and which would be the best way to start, that are required. Deputy Dooley referred to community-led renewable energy farms such as, for example, wind farms. We had representatives from one wind farm before the joint Committee on Climate Action earlier. It is the only one of its kind in the country. That is the case because the Government has not learned the lesson of how difficult it is for community-led wind farms to get up and running in the first instance, to operate and to add the value that they should. All the barriers that community-led wind farm faced almost 20 years ago are still there for those who are considering this option today. While we have made advances in wind energy, we certainly have not done so in terms of making it easier for community-led projects to work.

There are lots of alternatives that can and should be put in place. That is where the focus of the debate should be. We can have our differences on carbon tax increases. If I believed that they would change people's behaviour and reduce carbon emissions, I would support them, as I supported the sugar tax and the plastic bag levy. However, I do not think they will do that. They constitute window-dressing and pretence, and that does not do justice to the climate action debate we should be having.

It is incredible that the Government is pushing ahead with the importation of fracked gas, even though fracking is banned here. We will be debating this issue tomorrow. What is happening is extraordinary, particularly in view of the fact that fracking is banned here as a result of the obvious enormous environmental and social damage it inflicts. Sinn Féin has consistently opposed fracking at every level. However, we now have a situation where the Government is pushing ahead with the liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminal at Shannon. This project is going ahead despite much concern and opposition. Even before there has been a proper debate in the Dáil, we have a high-level committee in Brussels meeting on Friday that could make decisions on this. Again, this is hypocrisy. That is the problem with this Government's approach to climate action. We saw it with the Mercosur trade deal and we see it again here. We see it across the board. Deputy Dooley touched on the problem. The Government's plan is high on rhetoric but when one actually starts looking at the detail, much of it consists of targets that cannot be met . The Minister will be aware that the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport wrote to his Department and stated that the objective of putting 1 million electric cars on our roads cannot be met. The Minister's deep retrofit plan, which was rolled out for people with deep pockets, fell apart and he had to patch it back together again. Even the limited things the Minister is trying to do have not worked. I want to work with the Government, as does my party, to ensure that we put solutions in place. However, those solutions must be real, practical and tangible, and they have to work. If they do not work, and if they are just window-dressing, we will not support them.

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