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

This morning, in response to the People Before Profit motion seeking a deferral on carbon taxes to prevent further winter deaths and fuel poverty, the Government reiterated its promise or commitment to continue with increases in the carbon tax.

Can the Minister explain how the Government can morally justify how the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Government have spent weeks now trying to minimise efforts to make Facebook, Google and Amazon, which are some of the wealthiest corporations in the world, pay a little bit more tax. The Government tries to stop, resist and frustrate that, but, at the same time, it defends imposing further carbon taxes on the old, poor and vulnerable when this may actually result in winter deaths, fuel poverty and incredible hardship after all the energy price hikes.

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