Independent TD for Offaly Carol Nolan has said that the Government’s emerging climbdown on carbon tax increases is not only overdue but entirely unavoidable, adding that her attendance at the Irish Road Haulage Association annual conference in Killarney this weekend reinforced, in stark terms, just how destructive fuel related taxes have become for workers, families and the transport sector.
Deputy Nolan said she has consistently opposed carbon tax hikes because she has seen, year after year, the real and lasting economic damage they inflict.
She said the latest admission from senior Government figures that further increases are “politically impossible” simply confirms what she has been saying all along: the public has rejected punitive green taxation, and the policy has lost all credibility.
The Independent TD also highlighted the most recent figures showing the enormous sums already being extracted through carbon tax, estimated to be in the region of €1.176 billion for 2025:
“We have to remember that the State also continues to apply VAT on top of the carbon tax itself, creating a double burden that punishes people for heating their homes, travelling to work and running their farms and haulage businesses,” Deputy Nolan said.
“For years I have been warning that carbon tax is not an environmental measure, it is a revenue‑raising mechanism dressed up as climate virtue. Indeed, the Government’s wider net‑zero agenda has drifted into fantasy and is severely detached from economic reality and social fairness.”
“We are now at a moment of truth. The so‑called net-zero transition is being funded by squeezing the very people who keep this country moving. If ministers are finally waking up to the fact that more carbon tax hikes are politically impossible, then they must also accept that the entire model of punishing people into compliance is broken.”
Deputy Nolan said that Budget 2027 must mark a decisive shift away from punitive taxation and toward affordability, energy security and practical support for genuine efficiency measures:
“That means ending VAT on carbon tax, ruling out any further increases, and abandoning the illusion that Ireland can price its way to net zero without inflicting serious damage on its own people.”
“The message from hauliers, farmers, rural communities and ordinary families is unmistakable and it was echoed loudly at the IRHA conference: enough is enough. The Government must concede to the obvious, stop treating essential energy use as a luxury, and finally put fairness and common sense at the centre of climate and energy policy,” Deputy Nolan said.
Last month, Fuels for Ireland’s Chief Executive Kevin McPartlan told the Government: “Carbon tax has a clear emissions-reduction purpose. Before Government changes its trajectory, it should examine the whole fuel-policy system, what each measure costs, what it delivers and how the measures interact.
“If Government believes the total burden on motorists, businesses and households has become too high, it seems strange the next measure we might slow down is carbon tax without first examining everything else Government policy adds to the price of fuel,” he said.
“This is not an argument against lower fuel taxes. It is an argument for a smarter, long-term fuel tax strategy,” he added.