Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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196. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will provide all correspondence with the Minister for Finance from his Department relating to the proposed and then scrapped increase in the carbon tax as part of budget 2019. [42710/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The then Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment wrote to the Minister of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform on 27 July 2018 in the context of pre-Budget engagement on taxation policy matters for Budget 2019. In relation to carbon tax, the Minister’s letter re-stated the Government’s commitment, through the National Mitigation Plan, to an ongoing role for carbon pricing as a core element of the suite of policy measures to address and reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time, and noted that review of the carbon tax, which has been commissioned from the ESRI by the Department of Finance, should provide a robust basis for the Government to provide a clear long-term signal on the future evolution of carbon taxation in Ireland. Specifically, this would ensure that the carbon tax is able to perform its core function of driving changes, over the longer term, in business and household behaviour. The correspondence also noted the recommendation of the Climate Change Advisory Council, contained in its 2018 Annual Review, that a commitment could be made to have a carbon tax rate of not less than €80 per tonne by 2030.