Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I am very pleased that Deputy Doherty has put down this amendment because it will give those Deputies whom I hear in my constituency and right across the constituencies, particularly rural ones, regularly talking about the unfairness of carbon tax and the lunacy of increasing the price of petrol, diesel and home heating oil at a time when people are at the pin of their collar.

My fundamental difficulty with carbon tax is that it does not work. It does not bring people to alternatives because for many of them, the alternatives do not exist. For people who live where I live and work anywhere beyond walking distance, they have no choice but to use their car. If they are lucky enough to work in Dublin city centre in a nine-to-five job, they can drive into the nearest town and get a bus to and from work, but God forbid they work the nightshift in a hospital because there is no public transport available to them and they have to drive to Dublin. If they work anywhere other than the artery from Letterkenny and Derry to Dublin, there is no public transport available for them at all. They have no choice but to use their car. That is also the case if their children are taking part in any after-school activity, if they have a hospital or health appointment or if they want to go to watch their local football team play in game, usually home or away. They have no choice.

What is the alternative? It may be to purchase an electric car, but most of the people I represent do not have the funds to purchase one. The car is not a luxury or something they can just decide to leave at home. Rather, it is an essential part of their life. It is the exact same as a light switch in their home and the water coming out of their tap. It is something they need in order to run their family. What are we, as legislators, doing in this House? We are making their lives more difficult. Carbon tax does not help the environment; it makes people’s lives harder. Increasing it at this time is absolute folly and cannot be justified by anyone.

For the past five years before the last election, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael representatives in my county and right across the place were saying it was those dastardly Greens who were forcing them to do it. They said they were in government with them and that they were insisting on carbon tax increases every year. During debates like this every single year, you could hardly hear yourself with Deputies Michael and Danny Healy-Rae and the Rural Independents slamming the Green Party for forcing poor Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to make people’s lives harder.

12 o’clock

The Green Party was given its answer by the electorate and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can no longer hide behind its skirts. Tonight, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independent TDs will have an opportunity to say whose side they are on. Are they on the side of making people's lives harder or on the side of making people's lives just a little more tolerable by not increasing the essential cost of using their car each day to go to work, drive their children to school or whatever the case may be? We will find out fairly soon. There will be an opportunity for people to put their money, and their vote, where their mouths have been for the past five years or more.

I know what the Tánaiste will say in his response. He will say the carbon tax funding is ring-fenced and kept aside to support vulnerable people through hardship schemes and other social welfare benefits. He is actually going to tell lies and mistruths. He is going to repeat the mistruth-----

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