Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

For capital expenditure too. The budget is not progressive. In the year 2000 the Government published a climate change strategy that proposed a carbon tax by 2002, more investment in buses, the cessation of coal use at Moneypoint power station by 2008, rebalancing vehicle registration tax and integrated traffic management. None of this happened and consequently we are over our emissions limit. Since the publication of the report 500,000 houses have been built and 600,000 cars put on the road which blithely ignores the need for sustainable patterns of energy use. Over these years the movement of drivers to cars with larger engines wiped out the improvement in emissions performance achieved by car manufacturers and the average emissions per car increased by 11%.

The only provision in the national development plan on climate change is to pay €270 million in penalties for the failure of the Government strategy set out in 2000. The Green Party deserves some credit for dragging Fianna Fáil to face this important global challenge but it must also realise that enough is not being done. Today's balancing of VRT is welcome but it is a belated move that may not be enough. I also welcome the pilot programme on home insulation and believe it should be grant aided nationally because it will yield results.

There should have been a provision in today's budget to grant aid domestic turbines.