Yesterday, the Minister for Finance announced an increase in carbon tax as part of budget 2020. The Government pushed ahead with a tax increase that it knows will disproportionately hit the vulnerable and low paid. The Government knows this because it has been told. The ESRI and the Department of Finance have told the Taoiseach that poorer households, rural areas and lone parents will bear the brunt of this decision. The Taoiseach should be in no doubt that his increase in carbon tax will deepen poverty and inequality. It will make life harder for those families that are just about getting by.

This is not a climate action measure. It is not about making Ireland greener or cleaner and it is certainly not about changing people's behaviour. In order for carbon taxes to influence behavioural change, they have to be supported by investment and we have all of the evidence of this fact here in Ireland. The existing carbon tax has generated €400 million every year since 2015 without changing behaviour or Government policy and, critically, emissions are not dropping. This shows that we must provide people with alternatives for them to transition to a low-carbon lifestyle. That means investing properly in order to give viable alternatives in terms of transport, fuel and heating, but the Government is not doing this. Presenting this regressive tax as a climate action measure is a hoodwink, a ruse and an attempt to dupe people into believing that the Government is taking the climate crisis seriously when nothing could be further from the truth. The carbon tax hike is not climate action. At best, it might be called tinkering or a half measure. At worst, it is another PR stunt the bill for which is passed on to workers, families and pensioners. This will not change people's behaviour but it will make people poorer. The Government plans to keep increasing this tax over a ten-year period and therefore chooses to go after ordinary households rather than the big polluters and those most able to shoulder the burden. That is classic Fine Gael. Whenever there is a cost for the damage caused by those at the top, Fine Gael likes nothing better than to send the bill to the ordinary people.

Everybody accepts that we all have to do more and that we have to do better. We all have a part to play in meeting the challenge of climate change and we only have a few short years to rise to the challenge. I want the Taoiseach to do the right thing. I want him to pursue an alternative that will actually work. I want him to fund climate action through progressive taxation and then invest in a real plan in transport, energy infrastructure and a massive home retrofitting programme. That is what the Taoiseach should have announced yesterday. The morning after the day before, I ask him to do the right thing and to drop this carbon tax increase.

I am afraid the Deputy is just wrong on this. She is out of touch with the facts and the science. She is out of touch when it comes to the enormous demand from people across Ireland, particularly younger people, that we should take action when it comes to climate change. I do not think for a second that increasing any tax is ever going to be popular or welcomed but sometimes it is the right thing to do. On this occasion, it is the right thing to do. This is a tax which is all about the environment and climate action. That is why it is being ring-fenced. Specifically, the revenues from it are being ring-fenced to protect the most vulnerable, those at risk of fuel poverty and to take specific climate actions, paying for some of that investment that the Deputy talks about being necessary, because investment has to be funded. The Deputy might consider what we have done in respect of the fuel allowance by increasing it by €2 a week. This fully protects the 22% poorest households in Ireland.

That is a pittance.

This is what the ESRI research says. If the Deputy does not want to believe me, he should listen to the facts, the experts and the scientists. The ESRI research indicates that an increase in carbon tax will cost the poorest households about €44 a year. The increase in the fuel allowance is €56 a year so in fact the poorest one fifth of households in Ireland are actually better off as a result of what we have done in respect of carbon tax. Deputy McDonald suggests somehow that carbon tax is only paid by households. That is not what the facts or the research show. The facts and the research show that more than half of carbon tax is paid by business and by those big polluters the Deputy mentioned. The polluter pays principle applies. It is applied across the board, those who pollute the most pay the most and that is why business is going to pick up most of the cost of the carbon tax.

In respect of rural areas, it is true that in general, people in rural areas are more affected by carbon taxes than those who are not. Again, that depends on the circumstances. Somebody living in a rural town like Kenmare in County Kerry who lives and works in that town and has a well insulated house will be no more affected by the carbon tax than somebody who lives in the city centre. People who have lifestyles that use a lot of carbon will be more affected, including people living in suburban Dublin who may have poorly insulated houses. The whole point of carbon tax is to incentivise behavioural change over time. That is why we did not go for a big increase as some recommended. We decided to go for steady, smaller increases. I would say to the Deputy that if she does not believe me, that is fine but she should listen to the 27 Nobel prizewinners who have spoken on this. She should listen to our own Climate Action Advisory Council, Friends of the Earth and all of the people who really care about our climate and improving our environment. They all say the same thing. They say that carbon tax on its own will not stop climate change but we will not stop climate change without it. It has to be part of the picture and it is part of the picture. This is being done in addition to a €22 billion investment in renewable energy, insulating our homes, and public transport. All of those things are being done.

The history of carbon taxes in this jurisdiction is that they have not had the effect of reducing emissions. That is just a fact. It has been patchy but the trajectory is going in the wrong direction. The Government has had €400 million per annum to invest to support behavioural changes and it has failed abjectly. This is a case of the Government believing its own hype and propaganda. I am well aware, by the way, of what young people expect from us. I live with two young people who are very clear what they want to see. They want to see meaningful actions. That does not mean box-ticking by the Taoiseach to make himself look good and to don his new green credentials. The hike in the carbon tax is going to hurt poorer households. It is going to hurt lower-income people who are at work and do not qualify for a fuel allowance. It is going to hurt people living in substandard accommodation who cannot afford to retrofit their homes. The budget yesterday, the same budget that proposes this hike in carbon tax, was pathetically inadequate in terms of supports for those families in any respect but particularly in terms of retrofitting.

I put it to the Taoiseach that he is a green poseur and nothing more than that. He is not serious about climate action but he is serious about hammering those families and workers who ought to have been given a break yesterday.

The Deputy and her party are not serious about climate action, and the same applies to the far left. She proposes solutions that make no difference because they are not unpopular, yet she will not support climate action that might be unpopular because it works. It is an entirely cynical and hypocritical approach to climate action to only support actions that do not make a difference because they do not inconvenience anyone and to oppose actions that do make a difference. I really hope that young people, who particularly care about climate action and the environment, see through Sinn Féin and the far left-----

They see through the Taoiseach.

-----and see how left-wing and populist politics is actually anti-environment and how Sinn Féin is trying to hijack their movement to promote a philosophy that is profoundly anti-environment.

What we are doing by increasing the carbon tax and setting a trajectory to reach €80 per tonne is saying that while the tax will rise, we will ring-fence it. We have ring-fenced it to protect the poorest 20% of households, who will be better off as a result of this measure. We have research to prove that. The rest is being invested in climate actions, which is exactly the kind of investment the Deputy talks about. Investment has to be paid for. Does it not make sense when investing in the environment and climate action to raise the money by disincentivising exactly those things that damage the environment?

That is really bad-----