Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak about these two financial resolutions. There are people who are addicted to cigarette smoke and who want to smoke.

I do not think we have the right to impose a further tax of 50 cent on a packet of cigarettes. If people want to smoke, that is their business. If the Minister and I do not want to smoke, that is our business but we should not hurt those already hard-pressed people.

I studied the carbon tax with people in my office this evening. It is frightening. If we analyse what it will do, going from €20 to €26 per tonne, and going as far as €80, which is the Minister's aspiration, it will cripple people. It will make it impossible for someone to buy a bag of coal or a bail of briquettes. People will find it impossible to fill their car with fuel. What are they supposed to do? Are they to get up on bicycles, cycle around and rub their hands together to keep warm? The Government must live in the real world. There are young people struggling trying to live but they will not be able to do so with all the taxes that the Government is imposing on them.

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