Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to the amendment. I thank Senator Moynihan, as well as Senator Wall who will second the amendment on her behalf.I am going to speak for a couple of minutes to my amendment and I am very keen to speak to the motion as well, which I welcome as it is a very constructive and positive one from the Fine Gael Senators. I know many of them have individually championed public transport projects but to bring it together into a motion for the House is a very positive step.

My amendment relates to the significant issue of how we describe things. How we describe what we are doing makes a difference to how we approach it. My amendment suggests that the line in the motion, “that the role of carbon tax is to effect change in habits”, would be changed to a recognition of the fact we had been subsidising carbon and subsidising fossil fuels for a very long period of time. Indeed, that justification was given by the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform when it was first initiated and at the higher, European level in regard to carbon tax. My amendment calls “for carbon pricing to better reflect the social and environmental cost of carbon emissions and to reduce public subsidisation of the fossil fuel industry”. Again, I have had agreement in the committee, when I quizzed the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, that that is the rationale. It is a Pigovian tax. The idea of a Pigovian tax is that, when an industry is producing and selling something but is externalising all of the extra costs that go with its products and getting society to carry them, and getting the environmental costs to be carried by others, and having others pay for the health costs and the clean-up costs and pay the trillions we spend on climate change, it is not fair for everybody else to carry those costs and they should be contained within that industry.

If we recognise that that is the situation, it is very important for two reasons. I worry there has been a perception through the use of language about “habits” or “lifestyle”, and there are certain taxes we bring in to encourage good lifestyle choices. That can be patronising and it can add a sense of insult to injury. The fact is that, for many people, it is not that they are using fossil fuels as a bad habit; it is because they find themselves in situations where they rely on these fuels simply for survival. To tell somebody with a disability who has high energy usage that it is their habit and that we have this tax to change their bad habit sends a very negative message, as it does to say that to people in rural Ireland who do not have public transport options. How we frame it matters. We should be framing it as follows. The fact is we are moving away from fossil fuels that we cannot socially afford. It is a social transformation and, therefore, we have a duty to protect the most vulnerable and to provide them with alternatives.

Moreover, when we recognise the problem is the subsidisation of the fossil fuel industry, we can do a bit better around how we target those taxes. For example, a huge amount of our subsidies to the transport industry are subsidies we give to jet kerosene or subsidies for excise duty on diesel fuel. That is where much of the cost and the subsidisation is coming from. We need to think about whether we carbon tax at that level. Maybe it is about where we put the taxes and perhaps it will be more on production rather than just on consumption.

To move to the motion, I strongly support it because it is very good. I particularly welcome all of the conversation in terms of rail but particularly in terms of the western rail corridor. A huge opportunity was missed in the past to include this in EU funding projects. I want this because it gives strength to the motion and highlights the climate committee’s transport report, in which we highlighted that the cost-benefit analysis that has been used on rail projects in Ireland is inherently flawed. This is the type of cost-benefit analysis that is used to delay things like the western rail corridor and to delay changes and new rail projects. That happened because an excessive weight was given to time savings and there was an undervaluing of the social, environmental and other benefits of rail, and the time horizons within cost-benefit did not reflect the long-term value. I can give more detail on this. However, what I am saying is that one of the key ways that we move forward on rail is by having proper cost-benefit analysis that really looks to the benefits and realises, as others have said, that the benefits are not just simply in ticket sales. In fact, we should be looking to lower those as far as possible, if not make public transport free for a period.

Deputy Dooley made good points on that. We have almost missed a moment of opportunity. When people returned to work and school this September, it would have been great if they were returning with a really new and affordable offering in terms of public transport and school transport. It was a moment for a sea change in habits, although we have had a bit of an incremental piece by targeting discounted fares just for some young people. Those cost-benefit analyses will make a difference and will make the value of things like the western rail corridor become very apparent. I want to particularly support that.

The amendment put forward by Senators Boyhan and McDowell has very good merit. One of its potential merits is that it is publicly led. At the moment, we have a bit of a piecemeal approach in terms of private security that may be attached to some transport but not to other transport. It needs a co-ordinated approach. I would add that as well as looking to the policing, one of the key things is having shelters, having proper lighting and having staffed railway stations and bus stations; it is about having people on the ground. We know that where we have people, we have much less of the disruptive behaviour. Having so many unmanned stations is an unfortunate decision.

Again, I welcome the motion and I am happy to support it. I hope others might be able to support my amendment.