I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. First, any reduction is welcome. I was looking for figures with regard to NORA. Between €2 billion and €3 billion was supposed to be paid into it since 2007 or 2008. My understanding is that the oil reserves are not just in Ireland, but we have a deal with someone else. The way NORA is set up needs more explanation, to be quite frank about it. The levy going is a good thing. We welcome the reduction in the price of fuel for white diesel and petrol, but green diesel has totally been left behind. I remember the day myself, Deputy Collins and a few others went into government talks. When we brought up the carbon tax, we were told "No, it can’t be touched; that’s from Europe and that’s it". I have got information from Europe on what is mandatory on all EU states. They must participate in the EU emissions trading system, ETS, which is an EU-wide system that puts a price on carbon for power plants, heavy industry and aviation. The Government decided not to go near aviation but instead to tax the person driving up and down the country. The ETS market works on a "cap and trade" basis. It is not a fixed tax. Every EU country must price carbon in these sectors. This is the only compulsory carbon-pricing mechanism in the EU. What is not mandatory is a national carbon tax. It is actually optional. If you can look at some of the different countries in Europe, you will see that in Sweden it is very high, whereas Germany basically has nothing. The Government has constantly said we have to do this because it is EU law, but there is no law to state that you cannot reduce the carbon tax. I ask if anyone can give me information contrary to that. We were led to believe that this was all a requirement of the EU. If we can bring in legislation today to basically get rid of the NORA levy, there is no reason we cannot do the same for the home heating sector and the agricultural and building sectors. I spoke to a groundworks contractor in Dublin this morning who is working at houses. Every month, it is costing them €240,000 more now in diesel than a month ago. Is that sustainable? What is that going to do? It will put up the price of a house. Every one of the main suppliers has sent out messages saying that tar, concrete and all the materials are going up. House builders are deciding whether they need to pull back. Those are the facts of what is going on. If the Minister of State wants me to verify that, I will do so. If you go to a site, you will learn that it is €120 a day extra for the digger now in green diesel. You can multiply that by the number of plants that are on the site. Even a generator on a site is on green diesel. When you are finished on the site, you have to go to the quarry to bring stones. The crusher, the loading shovel and every part of the quarry bar the lorry on the road will be on green diesel. These are the facts. We cannot see we are driving up the price of houses because we are leaving the price of green diesel at its current level. The excuse that was used about carbon tax was that we cannot stir it. I have looked for the full breakdown of the carbon tax receipts. It needs to be put on the record. Yes, agriculture gets some of this money. Those who talk about environmental schemes say that the money is going to AEOS and REPS, but the fact is that as much money, or more, was going to environmental schemes when there was no carbon tax as there is now. Those are the facts on that. We heard about insulating houses and doing all of that. Everyone agrees with that but if we look at the figure to see what was spent, we will see that it was €450 million to €500 million. We are taking in €1.1 billion or €1.2 billion. We paid for everything else all down through the years before there was any carbon tax. What has been brought in is another tax like the USC. I am not saying that the Government should scrap it for good but I am asking that at least while people are under pressure, it should be dropped for a few months to try to give people breathing space. Green diesel is €1.61 today. I got the prices earlier. Kerosene is up there as well. That was being bought at 96 cent or 98 cent, including VAT. Those are the facts. The Government needs to have a real look at this.

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