Michael Healy-Rae: Carbon Tax Punishes Rural Ireland

With regard to the Finance Bill, first of all Minister Troy, I want to just say with regard to the package that was put in place, I want to thank Minister Martin Hayden, Minister Dooley and Minister Grealish and also Minister Darragh O'Brien and the team that worked in putting together this package. Of course I'd welcome the package because I worked on it myself as well also and of course like every package that was ever put together, the one thing that you'd always say is that did it go far enough? Well of course the whole issue of taxation on fuel has to be looked at and it'll have to be looked at ahead of Budget 2027. Our tax system cannot rely so heavily on taxation on fuel Minister given that rural people in Ireland are at a disadvantage because they have to drive further, because of agriculture, because of contracting, because of the whole issue of trying to survive in rural Ireland. So we'll say for example the carbon tax deferral is welcomed very very much but again this is a tax that will have to be examined as to its effectiveness because it's punishing people again living in rural areas who don't have any alternative, only that they have to drive and they have to use diesel and they have to use petrol because of the simple fact that electric vehicles aren't as reliable, they don't give the same distance and that is why the whole issue of carbon tax is a very hot potato when it comes to people living in rural areas. But again I would remind people that the package that was put in place was if not the largest, it was the second largest fund put in place in Europe in response to the war that has raged many thousands of miles away and which is totally beyond the control of this government. But at the same time we have to be balanced and we have to be considerate about taxing on fuel to understand that in Ireland we have an awful lot of people living in rural areas like County Kerry and people who are in the position that they are being more directly negatively impacted by taxes on fuel than other people. And the whole thing of carbon tax funds, the SEAOI will say that is being funded from carbon tax, but it's ironic that we still have people waiting for two years for retrofitting, retrofitting under the warmer schemes, the warmer home schemes. So while money is being gathered through taxation to help people to retrofit their homes and such an amount of money is being collected all the time, you would have to say why is it when an older person, and when it comes to being older, you see if you were a person that's in their 70s or their 80s and if they're living in a cold home and they put up their hand and they say right I want to make my home more energy efficient, I want to avail of the retrofitting grant and I welcome the retrofitting grant and I'm glad that it's there, but if you're high open numbers in age and you're told yes you qualify but yes you must wait so many years, you can understand Minister why that's a big worry to a person who might be shoving 80 and being told yes we'll give you the grant but you must wait two years for it. Surely be to God we could do better when it comes to delivering and I know manpower on the ground, the labour and all of that, I understand why there are difficulties in delivering it, I don't know, in a more quicker fashion but that is something that we should seriously seriously be looking at and again I would hope that in Budget 2027 we'll be able to look at aspects of that scheme to see can we get the money to where it's needed quicker and bring relief and bring heat, warmth and comfort to older people in a quicker fashion than what we're doing at the moment and again when it comes to the issues like the carbon tax we have to start looking at exactly the amount of money that's been collected and how quickly it's being delivered to help those people that we're trying to help because again we have things like money is being collected and it's going for example to TAMS grants, something that we desperately want funding for and so we have to strike a balance Minister and a balance that is for the greater good at all times but again it'd be wrong of anybody to be talking here tonight on the Finance Bill and not to recognise that the package that was put in place was such a large and substantial sum of money and again with regard to agriculture and the marine that fund was put in place in a very timely fashion, yes there was administration that had to be dealt with but I do want to acknowledge the work of the Secretary General, of the people from the Department of Finance and again on that side of the house Minister Martin Hayden for chairing all of those meetings and being so diligent in dealing with the representatives from all of the groups who were representing whether it was the contractors, whether it was the marine people, the fishermen people, or the farmers and trying to deliver something that was going to be substantial enough that it would make a difference. That now has been implemented, people have their applications put in and they're able to know exactly what they're going to be getting now and how much money they're actually going to be getting and any amount of money that they'll get of course it's a help and there's another issue then because of the fact that it being a rebate scheme they shouldn't have to pay a tax on the money that they'll get because of it being a rebate.