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Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald clashed in the Dáil over the carbon tax when he accused her of having an “each-way bet” on climate change and said she should “get off the fence”.
The sharp exchanges occurred after Ms McDonald claimed the Government failed to act on the surge in inflation which was “out of control”.
She called for a temporary cut in Vat on fuel and energy to zero to “alleviate at least some of the pressure” on households of surging inflation.
Ms McDonald said the Czech Republic had taken action on zero Vat and calling for the Government to follow suit she claimed the Coalition had failed to give relief or “to reduce suffering”.
She said “people are fleeced with extortionate rents, record insurance costs, childcare fees are the equivalent of a second mortgage, the price of the weekly shop has gone up and households have been hammered by more than 30 increases in energy and fuel bills just this year”.
The Dublin Central TD said her party had outlined how Government could start getting the cost of living under control including giving a tax credit to put a month’s rent back into tenants’ pockets through a tax credit, and to cut childcare fees by two thirds “but you chose instead to cap fees at their current unaffordable rate”.
“And all you did was make it harder for people to light and heat their homes with another carbon tax hike.”
But rounding on the Sinn Féin leader, Mr Martin said “we did give relief you just choose to ignore it”. He said that Sinn Féin had opposed the tax relief to workers in the budget.
‘Disingenous’
“It’s about time you got off the fence on climate change,” he told Ms McDonald. “You’re having an each way bet every week in this House on climate change for the last couple of years and on the issue of carbon tax which gives us the funding to help people on low income meet decreased energy costs.
“That’s so disingenuous that you seek to exploit measures which we have taken which are not popular we accept but which are very important in terms of dealing with the kind of emergency facing the globe and facing this country.
“We have taken measures already to help people who are on low income and in fuel poverty through the measures that we’ve taken”, including through tax reliefs.
Mr Martin acknowledged that inflation had picked up internationally as well as in Ireland at 5.1 per cent, the highest since 2003.
But he stressed that “the carbon tax is not the factor responsible for this inflation and you shouldn’t be presenting the impression that it is which you’ve been consistently doing.”
Social Democrats joint leader Róisín Shortall said the Taoiseach publicly signed up to a 30 per cent global reduction in methane emissions at the Cop26 meeting but “you cop-out” before the ink dries on the document as she cited comments by the Tánaiste in the Dáil that the target for methane emissions is a 10 per cent target.
“Can you explain the purpose of publicly signing up to a 30 per cent reduction target when it seems you have no intention of even even attempting to achieve that,” she asked.
She also asked if the national herd would be cut to achieve emission cut goals.
“Can you just be honest and strange with people” about the Government’s goals which she claimed lacked credibility and clarity, she asked.
But Mr Martin told her “you suffer from an abundance of negativity” and accused her of seeking to undermine “genuine and transformative decisions by this Government” to make step change in climate action.
Solidarity TD Mick Barry asked why the Government would not commit to a 30 per cent cut in methane emissions as he accused the Coalition of “kowtowing” to big agri-businesses while regarding itself as the “best boys in the class”.
The Taoiseach who said the 30 per cent global commitment did not oblige individual countries to reach that target and they could assist in different ways, rejected Mr Barry’s claim.
But he acknowledged that Ireland was behind as a country and had to work very hard to catch up and meet commitments.