Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have very little time to deal with what is a very important resolution before us. I will try to be as brief as I can.

The Labour Party fully participated in the all-party committee on climate change. We subscribed, after immense amounts of work by all parties, to its conclusions. Part of that, a comprehensive suite of measures, was an increase in carbon taxes. That is why we will not resile from that now. That is the acid test of seriousness about altering the build-up of carbon in the atmosphere and we must play our part in that. Part of that deal was that its cost would not be borne by people who could not afford it. That was the deal. We proposed not only a ring fence for the increases in carbon taxes but that the full carbon taxes would be rebated to those who needed them most, and that there would be a national retrofitting programme.

Those of us who strongly support the integrated strategy to achieve our greenhouse gas emission targets will find it difficult if the mitigation that was promised is not delivered upon and this particular set of proposals will undermine public support for that. There is a notion that it is enough to give a tokenistic increase in social welfare free fuel, but there are hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers who will not benefit from that and there are people who cannot avail of public transport, etc. We need to have the spirit of the all-party committee commitments met in full. We will support this tonight but we will need to return to this issue.

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