Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----and yes, Mary Robinson said it. Our own climate change advisory council has also recommended a carbon tax. John FitzGerald of the ESRI came out again yesterday evening to say there was a need for a carbon tax. The Leader it very good at criticising Fianna Fáil for the disaster they left us with our economy but this issue is all on Fine Gael. Fine Gael talks the talk but is not prepared to walk the walk. We are going to leave fines amounting to hundreds of millions of euro to later decades and inflict huge damage on the Third World in the shape of climate change. The Taoiseach said we were laggards but we have taken no action. We are the second worst EU state for tackling climate change and we see no action on it in this budget in the form of a carbon tax. That is totally regressive.