Another carbon tax increase will hit people hard in the pocket tomorrow morning. Last October, carbon tax increases hit motorists in the pocket as petrol and diesel increased from €56 per tonne to €63.50 per tonne. Tomorrow's increase will hit people using gas, home heating oil, coal and briquettes. Household gas bills will rise by €17. The cost of home heating oil will rise by €19 per 900 l. It now costs €160 extra for 900 l of home heating oil and 17 cent extra for a litre of petrol or diesel since the carbon tax began.

Carbon tax receipts topped the €1 billion mark last year. Independent Ireland called for a freeze on carbon tax increases in the run-up to the last election, as did many Independent TDs who have now changed their minds. Does the Taoiseach accept that this is hitting the most vulnerable in society and will he freeze any more increases in carbon tax?

In the broader scheme of things, compared with other increases that have happened because of pressures in the market and so on, the impact of this is not similar in scale.

However, the Deputy has rightly raised issues about payments to farmers. A third of that revenue goes to farmers in terms of environmental schemes. A third goes to retrofitting. The Deputy will come in to me another day asking for an expansion of the retrofitting scheme and the elasticity of it - make it simpler, make it better, provide better grants and so on. Then there are the fuel allowances. Up to €1,200 in per-person payments were made last year in respect of fuel allowances. All that is coming from the revenue that is raised from the carbon tax. It enables a sustainable revenue stream for those three areas: farming, fuel poverty and retrofitting. Without it, I do not think the retrofitting scheme would have expanded to the degree that it has. We acknowledge that we can improve upon that scheme, but that is the trade-off.