Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I, and RISE, are completely opposed to the carbon tax. The Government is going to pay a price, politically, for this carbon tax, particularly if it heads towards the figure it wants between now and 2030 by a means of continuous increases, year after year. The reason for that is that it is an unjust, regressive tax on the one hand and, on the other hand, is completely inadequate and, at best, a distraction from what we need to do to tackle climate change.

It is a regressive measure by all objective standards. It hits low income people harder than high income people. That expresses itself in the fact that low-paid workers will not be able to afford to buy electric cars. Low-paid workers often live far away and have to commute to their jobs and have no public transport options.

It is also completely ineffective. Demand for petroleum products is relatively inelastic because of the absence of alternatives provided by the Government. It refuses to invest in proper public transport. International studies demonstrate that a carbon tax will take 110 years to address the climate problem. We do not have that time, we have ten years, and cannot be focusing on these tinkering consumption taxes. We must focus on production, which means keeping the oil and gas in the ground.

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