The triumph of ideology over decency:
Carbon tax will rise by €7.50 per tonne as part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7 per cent per year. This means an estimated €1.28 extra on a 60 litre tank of petrol and €1.48 more for a full fill of diesel from midnight tomorrow. Increases in the cost of other fuels like kerosene (900 litre tank up €19.40), natural gas (average annual usage up €16.95), coal (40kg bag up 89c) and peat briquettes (12.5kg bale up 20c) would not kick in until May.
Some of the increases will not arrive until next May, by which time, no doubt, Government will hope that the spike in the cost of fuels will have eased off a little bit. Perhaps the wind will have picked up, too, and the energy crisis will have eased.
Still, it speaks to a hardline, zealous attitude in Government that, at a time when fuel costs are spiralling for many families, and the country is facing a genuine energy crisis, the Government is ploughing ahead with a destructive policy like this one, which targets the very poorest people in Ireland.
It’s worth remembering that progressives usually claim to support progressive taxation. What is progressive taxation? It is the principle that the richer you are, the bigger of a proportion of your income you pay tax on. In income tax terms, this is usually expressed with the idea that people earning over €100,000 should pay an additional rate of tax on all income over that level. Our present income tax system is progressive: As your pay rises, so does your tax rate.
The Carbon Tax, by contrast, is 100% regressive. It actually takes a much bigger percentage of a poor person’s income than it does from a rich person. €20, after all, is not much to somebody taking home €700 per week. It is much more to somebody taking home half of that.
But when it comes to the carbon tax, progressives in Ireland do not care so much about the impact on the poor. Indeed, impacting the poor is the name of the game: The tax is designed, after all, to reduce consumption. The rich can afford the extra €20, and so, will likely not reduce consumption. The super rich may even avoid the tax altogether by switching their homes to some approved form of heating. Those who will suffer are those for whom this increase is financially painful – the poor.
As for the taxes on diesel and petrol, these too are inequitable. They might be considered, at this stage, to be little more than a tax on rural Ireland. In my own community, there is no public transport. The nearest town is miles away. People here, without their cars, are confined to home. In rural Ireland, there is no “alternative” to the car. That’s a Green fantasy for constituencies like the one Eamon Ryan represents, which has busses, and the luas, and taxis.
None of this, by the way, is about making the lives of Irish people better. It is explicitly about trying to reach carbon emissions targets that are laughably beyond reach as it is, and which will have no impact on the global climate besides, given that big polluting countries are continuing to increase their emissions. You’re going to pay, in the Budget today, for Eamon Ryan and his buddies to feel a bit better about their climate guilt. And if the poorest suffer the most, it matters not a damn to them.
Remember that, the next time you hear this Government describe itself as progressive.