Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am amazed at the disconnect that seems to exist between the Green Party - and to be honest, the position the Labour Party has just announced - and the reality that huge numbers of working people inhabit. There is nothing discrediting the climate change agenda more than these kinds of regressive taxes. The Greens are signing their own death warrant with this kind of stuff. I am amazed it does not get through to them how damaging this is to the climate action agenda when climate action means punishing working people who are struggling. A group I talk about all the time is the taxi drivers, who are on their knees. The Minister wants to increase their fuel costs, which is hardly a good way to get them on board for the climate agenda.

Musicians are a group that many people were talking about. Does the Minister know how most jobbing musicians get to jobs when they are available? They drive around the country. That is how they do it. Even more of them will have to do it after the Government cuts the Expressway routes. It is unbelievable that one of the first actions of the Green Party in government is to cut back on public transport - exactly what the party did on the previous occasion in the Fianna Fáil-led Government when it cut the Dublin Bus budget. Do they really think this is the way to endear people to the climate action agenda that we need urgently? Where is the just transition in this? It is only a token that never gets acted upon.

It is just a stupid mistake that does incredible damage to the climate action agenda when the Government should be putting forward policies where climate action will make a better life for the majority who are struggling, delivering the retrofitting programme that would reduce their heating bills and delivering the additional and subsidised public transport that will make moving around the place easier and cheaper. I hope at some stage they will cop on. We will be opposing this.

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