Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity to speak on the important carbon tax issue. The Rural Independent Group of which I am part is the only group that has been consistently opposed to the introduction of a carbon tax. We did not enter into playing any games or calling for a stop to be put to the increase in the tax.. We called for the whole carbon tax to be scrapped because it is an unjust tax that will cripple families. For instance, this year alone it will cost the average household €500 on top of all the other costs that are increasing. It will cost farmers €600 this year alone, and this tax will increase. That is unfair to people who were already struggling to get by. This imposition of this tax is a serious injustice. Surely the Government realises that. Many of those in government are good, strong rural Deputies who represent their constituents very well in their constituencies but there is an injustice with the imposition of this tax. It could be done much better.

The programme for Government makes claims about trying to achieve climate action targets, afforestation and planting 8,000 ha a year, and the rolling out of microgeneration schemes. Farmers are still not able to get onto the grid, which is causing frustration. The Government is punishing the ordinary Irish people and it is not even achieving its climate action targets, which is unfair. I do not think it will be accepted. We need to reconsider what else can be done and I ask the Government to do that. There is a fairer way to do this. The extremism coming from the Green Party in its policies shows that the party is very detached. Having listened to what some Green Party Deputies and some climate action experts have said, it seems to me that they are coming out with all sorts of nonsense. They would want to educate themselves about rural Ireland. They do not understand how rural Ireland operates and how these policies impact on people. This is certainly one policy that will disproportionately impact rural people. I am part of this group because we stand up for the rural people and try to do our best. We try to be honest and straight. We are completely opposed to the carbon tax and we will stay opposed to it. We will not be doing any U-turns and that is the way it is. We appeal to the Minister of State and rural Deputies in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to put an end to this. There is a better way forward whereby all the targets can be achieved in a reasonable manner without punishing people.

As bad as things are now, unfortunately, there is no hope of improvement, given the provisions of the Finance Act 2020, which legislated for annual increases in the rate of carbon tax out to 2030, which will bring the tax rate to €100 per tonne. That is simply not sustainable. It is a smash and grab of people's hard-earned incomes and it needs to be abandoned. Even the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, which is handsomely funded by the Government, recognised in a paper last year that the strategy to implement carbon taxes, which increases the price of carbon-intensive commodities, will lead to many households being worse off in an economic sense, in particular lower income households that spend a large share of their budget on energy and other emission-intensive products. To offset this in Ireland, the ESRI says that a proportion of carbon tax revenues is used to finance transfers, but this is just needlessly creating a problem only to then go and develop extraordinary measures to solve it. It makes no sense.

The Government often asks how we can fill the gap in terms of the proposed loss of carbon tax revenue. That is very clear and not half as complex or insolvable as the Government would have us believe. We could save hundreds of millions, if not billions, by radically revising the measures contained in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021. I have repeatedly highlighted the fact that according to an analysis conducted by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the cost of implementing the Government's Bill will be €20 billion each year until 2030. This country will be destroyed economically. It will be ruined and there will be no recovery. I call on the Government to recognise that as a fact.

That comes from the IMF, not the Rural Independent Group. All of this is for a Bill that explicitly deprioritises employment. It is incomprehensible. It must be rejected before irreparable damage is done and the costs skyrocket.

An excellent and detailed series of analysis has been carried out by the Irish Climate Science Forum, which has said that it seeks to bring rationality to the current climate debate. The forum seeks to ground its projections in less hysteria and in more solid, verifiable evidence of how we should be responding to mitigate whatever climate threats may emerge. Are Members aware that according to Professor Michael Kelly of Cambridge University, the practical challenges of the UK pursuing its 2050 net zero carbon ambition would exceed £3 trillion? He said that this target was simply unattainable. At least they copped on and realised that. A parallel study for his home country, New Zealand, led to a similar conclusion, as did his recent analysis of Ireland’s climate strategy. According to Professor Kelly, the cost to Ireland out to 2050 of pursuing its zero carbon agenda would comfortably exceed €375 billion, with a workforce required comparable in size with the health sector. We have people languishing on hospital trolleys and waiting for operations. That is not right. That is just not right. I ask the Minister of State to go back to the Cabinet with this information.

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