Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I heard the Acting Chairperson say earlier that there was a danger of people becoming confused regarding what this debate is about and that it is about a carbon budget. This is not about a carbon budget. It is anything but that. This is about a target but how we meet it is not included at all. The sectoral ceilings are not part of this. They will be agreed at a later date. I invite the Acting Chairperson to say specifically that those ceilings will be put before a Vote of this House because anything less is fundamentally undemocratic.

Imagine if the Minister for Finance stood up on budget day and said that expenditure in the country will be €87,593 million and then sat down and said, "Thank you very much." That would not be a budget because people would ask what the current expenditure and capital expenditure would be and how it would be broken down between Departments. If the Minister was to turn around and say, "Ah well, that will just melt your little heads lads, don't worry about that, just leave that to us, we're the big boys here in the Cabinet, we'll sort out all that, just vote for the headline figure, the €87,593 million expenditure because that is all you need to worry your little heads about", that would not be a budget. That is what the Government is putting before us and it is fundamentally undemocratic to do so. I invite the Acting Chairperson to say that the sectoral ceilings will be voted on by this House because anything less is not a budget. It is just a headline figure.

I wish to address a couple of other matters. We generally use taxes towards achieving a good. It is all well and good to talk about carbon taxes and taxing bad behaviour, but we have to have alternatives in place. I will point to two in the Minister's Department. There was a time when you could go to Iarnród Éireann, deliver a package and it would go to Dublin the same day. That stopped so now people have to use couriers, which is more carbon. Inflation was lower in France than any other country specifically because it managed to lower the cost of electricity since they have a State-owned electricity sector, just as we do. We have not done that in this country.

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