John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

Of course there is a conflict. The Senator's colleagues in the Dáil and the Seanad are, in many cases, speaking out of both sides of their mouths. They are referring to the need to fund local government, but accusing me of being anti-family because we are taxing cars and accusing me of being anti-rural.

The system for funding local government that I inherited is, by any standard, novel. In the context of the forthcoming Green Paper we must examine how we fund local government. I am also the Minister with responsibility for the environment so I wish to reduce emissions. I am trying to do so in as judicious a way as possible. That is the reason we have increased the cost by 9.5% for smaller cars and 11% for larger cars. That ensures a good revenue base for the local government fund. It has not increased for quite some time, even though the rate of inflation in that period is 15%. We have examined the issues and done this in the proper way. We have made amendments suggested by Deputy Coffey's colleagues in the Dáil. These were addressed in detail on Committee and Report Stages in the Dáil. We must examine and review the situation constantly.

In the UK, the bands have been expanded from four to 11 or more because they have noticed that people have changed their behaviour. They are buying lower emissions cars, which has an effect on revenue. We must keep the situation under review, which is what I will do.