Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, the Minister for Finance announced an increase in carbon tax as part of budget 2020. The Government pushed ahead with a tax increase that it knows will disproportionately hit the vulnerable and low paid. The Government knows this because it has been told. The ESRI and the Department of Finance have told the Taoiseach that poorer households, rural areas and lone parents will bear the brunt of this decision. The Taoiseach should be in no doubt that his increase in carbon tax will deepen poverty and inequality. It will make life harder for those families that are just about getting by. This is not a climate action measure. It is not about making Ireland greener or cleaner and it is certainly not about changing people's behaviour. In order for carbon taxes to influence behavioural change, they have to be supported by investment and we have all of the evidence of this fact here in Ireland. The existing carbon tax has generated €400 million every year since 2015 without changing behaviour or Government policy and, critically, emissions are not dropping. This shows that we must provide people with alternatives for them to transition to a low-carbon lifestyle. That means investing properly in order to give viable alternatives in terms of transport, fuel and heating, but the Government is not doing this. Presenting this regressive tax as a climate action measure is a hoodwink, a ruse and an attempt to dupe people into believing that the Government is taking the climate crisis seriously when nothing could be further from the truth. The carbon tax hike is not climate action. At best, it might be called tinkering or a half measure. At worst, it is another PR stunt the bill for which is passed on to workers, families and pensioners. This will not change people's behaviour but it will make people poorer. The Government plans to keep increasing this tax over a ten-year period and therefore chooses to go after ordinary households rather than the big polluters and those most able to shoulder the burden. That is classic Fine Gael. Whenever there is a cost for the damage caused by those at the top, Fine Gael likes nothing better than to send the bill to the ordinary people.

Everybody accepts that we all have to do more and that we have to do better. We all have a part to play in meeting the challenge of climate change and we only have a few short years to rise to the challenge. I want the Taoiseach to do the right thing. I want him to pursue an alternative that will actually work. I want him to fund climate action through progressive taxation and then invest in a real plan in transport, energy infrastructure and a massive home retrofitting programme. That is what the Taoiseach should have announced yesterday. The morning after the day before, I ask him to do the right thing and to drop this carbon tax increase.

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