Yesterday, more with anger than any other feeling, I raised the issue of climate change and how the budget ignored it. The Leader's response was to claim that I was for taxation. I am for taxation, and we have to bring in a carbon tax. The Citizens' Assembly said it-----

Mary Robinson said it.

-----and yes, Mary Robinson said it. Our own climate change advisory council has also recommended a carbon tax. John FitzGerald of the ESRI came out again yesterday evening to say there was a need for a carbon tax. The Leader is very good at criticising Fianna Fáil for the disaster they left us with our economy but this issue is all on Fine Gael. Fine Gael talks the talk but is not prepared to walk the walk. We are going to leave fines amounting to hundreds of millions of euro to later decades and inflict huge damage on the Third World in the shape of climate change. The Taoiseach said we were laggards but we have taken no action. We are the second worst EU state for tackling climate change and we see no action on it in this budget in the form of a carbon tax. That is totally regressive.

Hear, hear.

The previous Government had to be dragged into having a climate change advisory council and the then Minister, Phil Hogan, resisted it at every turn, something the people on the committee will be able to tell the Leader. We need action and not words and we do not need the Taoiseach to tell us we are laggards. The action that was expected from the Citizens' Assembly and the climate change advisory committee, from Mary Robinson and John FitzGerald, was some progress on a carbon tax in this budget, but we have seen no such progress. Some people have been running around the country saying they saved rural Ireland from tax on diesel and petrol, but rural Ireland is suffering from climate change, with effects such as floods and fodder crises, and the Government is going to do sweet FA. I find that totally unacceptable. It is totally regressive and leaves future generations to pay for our folly.

Hear, hear.

That is down to Fine Gael. I will not stand idly by. The Government will have to step up to the mark. No longer can it talk the talk. It must walk the walk. However, it has refused to do that for the past two years.

While I know the Senator is angry about the issue, he should be careful about the use of language.

I apologise. However, the response I got from the Leader yesterday was disgraceful.