Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

From the feedback I have got from outside this House, people are saying that this budget gave nothing, or less than nothing, to workers, pensioners, students or social welfare recipients but it hit people with increased prices on cigarettes and a regressive and unfair carbon tax. That is the truth. Punishing people for having an addiction is not the way to reduce smoking. Perhaps giving out free Nicorette patches, or whatever, might be the way to do that.

Moving on to the carbon tax, there was another protest outside Leinster House today, as part of rebellion week, which was about a just transition, which is a central pillar of the climate movement. There is nothing just about a carbon tax that hits the pensioner, or the person on a low income who cannot afford to retrofit their home, or who live in a council house and must wait for the council to do it. The budget did not bring in the real climate measures we need but the Government has made another grab at the pockets of ordinary people.

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