Carbon tax U-turn ‘will cost taxpayer €1.1bn’
The tax was part of a plan to reduce Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions through the Kyoto Protocol by imposing taxes on petrol, diesel, coal, natural gas and peat.
Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy said yesterday that the Government decided to abandon the carbon tax after a long consultation process showed it would have little impact on our annual targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon tax would only reduce our annual emissions by half a million tonnes a year, but we need to cut them by nine million tonnes, Mr McCreevy said.
The carbon tax would have made a modest contribution to reducing our emissions and the National Climate Change Strategy has better non-tax measures to do this, Mr McCreevy added. But opposition parties rejected this claim and criticised the Government for reneging on its environmental responsibilities.
Green Party finance spokesman Dan Boyle said: “This is a cynical political move, being sold as an avoidance of extra tax but which clearly puts the interests of fuel-heavy big business before the average consumer.”
The Government has given a commitment to reduce Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions to our 1990 levels plus 13% under the Kyoto Protocol within the next eight years.
But latest Central Statistics Office figures have revealed that our emissions were at the 1990 levels plus 29%. Mr Boyle said the Environmental Protection Agency director Ann Kenny had told a Dáil Committee that these breaches will cost Ireland €1.1 billion in penalties.
But the Government last night rejected the Green Party claims.
“This is based on the assumption that Ireland will fail to meet its greenhouse gas emission requirements by the deadline and the Government has a full National Climate Strategy in place to ensure we do,” a Department of Finance spokesman said.
“The Government is fully committed to the Kyoto Protocol and the international response to combat climate change and Ireland will meet its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target under the protocol,” Mr McCreevy said.
Environment Minister Martin Cullen said we could solve our emissions problem in the morning if we all took one less journey a day and burned less home fuel. New regulations covering industry will reduce our annual emissions by 45,000 tonnes from next year, Mr Cullen added.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael and Labour accused the Government of deferring a decision on carbon tax until after the next General Election.
Fine Gael’s environment spokesman Bernard Allen said research carried out by economist Peter Bacon had also shown that Ireland could even face penalties of over 4bn for not complying with Kyoto.
Labour said the Government now has no strategy to deal with CO2 emissions and Mr Cullen has been left with egg on his face.
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