Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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51. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment for a breakdown of the initiatives being rolled out by his Department to reduce emissions as a result of the carbon tax receipts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41677/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Will the Minister provide a breakdown of the initiatives being rolled out by the Department to reduce emissions and as a result of the carbon tax receipts, and will he make a statement on the matter?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The programme for Government commits that carbon tax revenues will be used to ensure carbon tax increases are progressive by spending €3 billion on targeted social welfare and other initiatives to prevent fuel poverty and ensure a just transition; to provide €5 billion to part-fund a socially progressive national retrofitting programme; and to allocate €1.5 billion to encourage and incentivise farmers to farm in a greener and more sustainable way. Between 2020 and 2023, my Department spent €482.1 million of carbon tax funds. A total of €472 million of these funds have been invested in Ireland's world-leading retrofit schemes, delivering 108,000 home energy upgrades, increasing from 17,546 in 2020 to 47,953 in 2023, and an increase in free upgrades under the warmer homes scheme, from 1,473 in 2020 to 5,898 in 2023, at an increased average cost of €25,000 per free upgrade.

A total of €8 million supported Ireland's contribution to the green climate fund to support developing countries to respond to climate change. Half a million was spent on the national just transition fund, supporting 56 locally led projects. In 2020, carbon tax funds were used to fund electric vehicle, EV, grants and EV infrastructure. Responsibility for that has since been transferred to the Department of Transport. This year, an allocation of €388 million of carbon tax funds is in place and will be spent.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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It is fair to say that with the €3 billion the Government collects, what the Minister really did was head off to COP and sign us up to targets that we could never meet. We face fines of between €3 billion and €8 billion as a result. The Minister will be long gone into the sunset when that occurs. The hardship he has caused people who have bought electric vehicles is pretty dismal. They bought them in good faith that the Minister would put the infrastructure in place, having given them a very small partial grant, and that infrastructure is not in place. Now many face the position where they cannot trade those cars because they have halved in value. The car dealers are not able to sell them and therefore cannot take them in, so we are left in a position where the Minister wrote to Ursula von der Leyen to make up for his mistake. He wrote to her on 7 October, along with some other ministers in the EU, and asked her to take advantage of the corporate fleet, those who have a car for work and get benefit-in-kind. He is asking her to look at that and, as he put it, to tap into it. The potential, however, currently remains untapped. The Minister now wants to force the EU to correct his mistake and bring in some further imposition where he lacked the capability to put the infrastructure in place to deal with the electric car market. He put the cart before the horse and now people are left footing the bill.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I believe we can meet our climate obligations and targets, which we need to do to protect our people from the incredible damage that will be done if we do not stop runaway climate change. The fact that last year, our emissions dropped by 6.8% shows it is possible. It is not just for environmental reasons. There are many social benefits as we make this switch to green. There are also, critically, benefits for the economy. I happened to be at the European Energy Council today and at the European Environment Council yesterday. We were discussing the Draghi report, which is the centre of the new European economic strategy. It is all about going green. I do not think there was a country there which did not think that if it does not do this, it will fall behind and its economy will not function. I disagree with the Deputy fundamentally. I believe electric vehicles have a real future and that new cars will all be electric, because they are better cars and are cheaper to run, especially when we can run them on our own renewable power rather than having to import and send money to the Middle East, Russia or elsewhere. This transition is coming. It will be good for our people. This Government has made incredible strides in that direction, as we can see with the numbers of houses being retrofitted. The number of electric vehicles on the road has taken a temporary reduction but it will come back because they are better cars and we will have the infrastructure to service them, including the renewable power.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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They are better cars. yet the Minister is putting tariffs on Chinese cars at half the price. He really does not want people to drive them, does he? The Minister did put the cart before the horse. I am not denying that the transition will take place, but the reality is the Minister has left some people in a financially disadvantaged position because of his inability to provide the infrastructure. We have allowed the Chinese to flood the market with cars that are built at half the price, might I add, from coal-powered energy. Sometimes people see the Minister going off and signing up to targets that mean little or nothing except billions in fines for this country. That is what makes them suspicious of the green agenda. Everybody has bought into the green agenda, but it seems to be costing some people more. It seems to be costing our fishing fleet and farmers more, all because the Minister has signed up to targets which are just not achievable, not in the timeframe for which the Minister signed up to them. He has decimated sectors of rural Ireland without a second thought.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I fear that the Deputy's words may be stoking suspicion and are not a true reflection of what is actually happening. First, we will likely meet our target for the number of electric vehicles on the road by the end of next year. I would like to see it higher and faster but we are on track. We are providing infrastructure. This summer, we agreed major investment, which is actually happening and being built, with high-speed fast charging in our motorway stations, and in our sports clubs across the country, where people will be able to go to the match or to the kids' training and charge at the same time. We are putting €100 million into exactly that infrastructure. Some 80% of Irish vehicles are charged at home, which gives us a real advantage. Distances are not so long in Ireland. All these new cars can work within the ranges we might need them to do on our island. We have one of the more advanced and better developed systems. We were one of the first, because the Green Party was in government ten years ago. We started this transition then by building out the first national network of charging systems. The Deputy could stoke suspicions by saying it is all terrible and we are the worst. We are not. I agree with the Deputy that Irish people want to make this green leap. They want to make this change. They are doing it in their homes, in how they manage transport and on our farms. It is happening, despite the suspicions the Deputy refers to.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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The reality is that, 20 years ago, the Green Party told everybody to buy diesel, that it was the energy of the future. The Green Party said that was the science. The science suddenly changed to buying electric. Now we are in a position where people bought electric but there is no infrastructure to support it. The electric cars are now coming from China at half the cost and are built with coal-fuelled energy. The Minister talks about suspicion.

There is a delusion in this country that we are going to take the cleanest diesel engines from trucks with euro 6 engines and put them on freight trains that are not even euro 1.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I am sorry Deputy, but the time for priority questions has elapsed.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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That is the point, and the Minister needs to answer it. I am not stoking suspicion, I am stating a fact.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We changed the tax code 15 or 20 years ago because we wanted to support lower emissions vehicles.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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What is the euro rating of the trains?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Thirty-five years ago we read and understood the science of climate change and the need for action.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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What is the euro rating of the trains the Minister is proposing to carry these trucks on?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I would like to see Deputy Murphy supporting-----

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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What are the euro ratings of the trains the Minister is proposing to put the clean trucks on? Answer that.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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What I would love to see Deputy Murphy supporting, as part of this new investment to a green economy, is the investment in Rosslare Harbour. It is at the centre of a new, cleaner way of doing things, including the reintroduction of rail freight and the restoration of the rail line from Wexford to Waterford-----

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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What is the euro rating of the trains?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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-----to revitalise both.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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The Minister does not have it.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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That is the future. It is going green.