Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to the Deputy with a note on that. VAT does apply to the value of the total bill.

On Deputy Boyd Barrett's remarks, the reason we are continuing with liquid natural gas for a time is because it is a transitional fuel that we believe is necessary to ensure we are able to meet the State's energy needs. In order to proceed with an ambitious retrofitting programme for local authority housing stock, we need levels of taxation that can be used to pay for that. One of the three pillars for how the additional tax revenue for the higher carbon pricing will be used is paying for the retrofitting of homes, and particularly local authority housing, and also to ensure that the relevant grant scheme needed from Sustainable Energy Ireland has additional revenue going into it.

On public transport, the Government recently decided to go ahead with the order for additional train carriages to ensure that the rail network will be able to increase its capacity in the future. There are longer Luas carriages in place to ensure the additional public transport capacity that is needed is in place as Dublin becomes increasingly busier. However, I return to the core point which is the fundamental area of difference between myself and Deputy Boyd Barrett. I acknowledge that increasing carbon pricing does have significant and difficult effects for some of our citizens but that is why we have increased the energy allowance and is also the reason why many on low incomes who are in receipt of social welfare payments will be protected from the effects of this change in carbon pricing.

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