Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Rural Independent Group for bringing this motion to the floor and allowing us have an opportunity to discuss carbon tax. I was very interested to listen to the Minister of State's response. It was useful also to be able to read it and the justification for the carbon tax. The term "behavioural change" is not used once. When the carbon tax was introduced behavioural change was the entire premise on which it was sold. It has now switched from being a behavioural change mechanism because it clearly does not work. If simply increasing the prices of carbon-based products and forcing people to change worked, there would have been a huge shift in the past six months. Instead, it has been turned into a revenue-raising argument by the defenders of the carbon tax. That does a huge disservice to climate action and is inherently unfair.

The Green Party principle, which has been adopted by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and was articulated by other Members of the Opposition last night, has equated climate action with punitive measures on ordinary workers and families. There is a suggestion, as Members of the Government have told us in Dáil debates and in TV and radio studios, that if we oppose penalising workers and families through measures like the carbon tax, we are opposed to climate action. There are others in the Opposition who grasp on to that argument and very cynically equate carbon taxes with climate action. We heard the argument that anyone who supports climate action targets ipso factosupports carbon taxes. That argument has been repeated this morning but it is not the case. I will say again that my fundamental and very strongly held belief is that it is possible to reach our carbon targets without giving people who have no alternative a kicking every single time.

To deal with the big issues of the day, be it housing, health or climate action, we must agree what needs to be done and set that out. We know what needs to be done in terms of renewables, retrofitting and transitioning away from fossil fuels. One then sets out how it is funded. What the Government has done, however, is turn that on its head. It has said we will charge people who do not have alternatives for using their cars to travel to work or for burning home heating oil and, at some point in the future, we will let people know how people will be allowed to transition. Fundamentally, what is wrong with this is that by those actions the Government is undermining the potential for us to reach our climate action targets because it is undermining support for the very concept of climate action among those who want to be partners.

This is what is happening. Next week, in the middle of a cost-of-living emergency, the Government plans to increase the cost of home heating oil. People who are at the pin of their collars will be expected to pay more to heat their homes. They do not have any alternatives. That is not climate action and it will do nothing for the environment. All it will do is to penalise those who use home heating oil, in the same way that increasing the cost of motor fuel does nothing for somebody who has to drive to work and who cannot afford a new car. The only thing that increasing the cost of fuel does is make their lives more difficult. Again, that is unfair. To my mind, and to paraphrase the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, there is a better, fairer and more credible way of achieving our climate action goals. This Government and the cheerleaders of carbon taxes have consistently undermined the very objective to which they say they are committed.

See this speech in context