Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)

We will not go into the whole idea of who is right and wrong. The Minister is eating into my time because he knows I wish to raise a number of points. This is an unfair tax on people living in rural areas because, as the Minister will know, they depend on their cars. Last week we had a debate with the Minister for Finance, and Senators on the Government side hopped up and down about the question of the price of petrol and diesel increasing to exorbitant levels, that people cannot afford to go to work and businesses are closing. Not one of those Members raised that issue with him when we discussed the Finance Bill last week. The price hike has hammered people in rural areas who depend on their cars to get around and now we are talking about introducing an extra tax on those people. At the same time there are cutbacks in school transport, Bus Éireann has cut routes to rural areas and another element of the Government is conducting the centralisation of services. Recently we had a meeting in Galway with the HSE and because of the cutbacks and job losses in the executive, people must go to central centres for services like dentistry and nursing. It makes people travel a lot more, thus costing them money. The proposal is unfair to those who depend on their cars to get around.

I note that Senator Landy discussed the people who have reduced from two cars down to one. We must take into account the other cohort of people who do not own a car, those who have emigrated or do not have a car on the road at present. People in rural areas are leaving in their droves due to the Government's policies.

Senator Quinn mentioned the potential for a tax on petrol and diesel. Last week when I asked the Minister for Finance what percentage of the cost of a litre of diesel or petrol was tax and excise duties, he could not tell me because he did not know. Even though he had a cohort of about 30 advisers sitting outside the door to the Chamber, he said he would revert to me on it. An estimated 53% to 80% of the price is excise duty or goes to the Government. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that we do not have a tax on petrol or diesel. These costs hammer people who travel more often and are more dependent on their cars because of the lack of access to public transport.

From our perspective, this is one of a heap of measures that the Government intends to introduce, including the household tax, cutbacks in the rural transport service-----