Poor hit hard by carbon fuel tax

THE poorest people in society must be financially compensated if the Government introduces a hefty carbon tax on fuels, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.

In its post-budget submission, Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) welcomed new measures in the carbon budget and environmentally friendly taxes as “steps in the right direction”.

However, CORI spokesman Fr Seán Healy said the poor in society must be compensated.

“We would have one qualification that needs to put in there, one that needs to be kept under review in this context is the impact of carbon-related changes on poor people and poor households,” he said.

“Poor people are affected disproportionately by many of the features in the carbon budget. Care must be taken to ensure that they are compensated adequately when changes are introduced.”

In a wide-ranging response to the budget heard by the Oireachtas committee on Social and Family Affairs, Fr Healy said the budget had failed to maintain the momentum of the last three budgets in addressing poverty and social exclusion.

He said 30% of households at risk of poverty are headed by someone with a job.

“These are the working poor. Another half of those households at risk of poverty are headed by those outside the labour force.

“Now, they’re not people who are unemployed. They are older people. They are people who are ill. They are people with a serious disability and they are people in caring roles,” he said.

He further accused the Government of failing to honour a commitment to fund 300 primary-care teams across the State by the end of next year and said not enough had been done to improve adult literacy rates.