In the closing days of the current Government, a split has emerged over an “anti-pollution tax” proposal. 

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are on the opposite side of the Green Party in an argument over the Government proposed new way of taxing vehicles in Ireland.

The proposed new tax would look at the weight of vehicles and the distance they travel.

On The Hard Shoulder today, Friends of the Earth Ireland CEO Oisín Coghlan said we “need to see the final document” before seeing if this is just “throwing shapes before an election”.

“There's no big surprises here,” he said. “This is a document that's been in the process of being prepared by this government collectively.”

“It [the proposal] is basically it's about two things - congestion and pollution.

“It's just about keeping space on our streets for our cars to move around, and also for buses and bikes and pedestrians to be able to move around.”

'Bigger and bigger'

Mr Coghlan said he thinks Dublin and elsewhere in the country cars are getting “bigger and bigger”.

“That's why one of these proposals is that actually we need to start charging not just based on engine size, like the old days, or pollution emissions now, but also by weight, as a proxy for size,” he said.

"Because of Electric Vehicles, which have lower taxes, the state needs to think about how it's going to how it's going to pay for the roads, and how it's going to going to maintain things.”

'Torture people off the roads'

Also on the show was Irish Road Haulage Association spokesperson Eugene Drennan said the “hallmark” of this Government is “tax on tax on taxes”.

“The congestion has been caused in Dublin City by all the traffic lights and all the new traffic plans and all the changing of how you can get through the city,” he said.

“Where is their focus? Is it on reducing carbon or on trying to torture people off the road?"

Mr Drennan said he believes that the public have “paid enough” within taxation that the Government need to find the savings within the budget to give to the infrastructure of the country “as always was”.

Rural focus

Mr Coghlan said his organisation believe there should be congestion charges in Dublin around the canals to free up space for buses, bikes and walking.

“The subsidies for electric vehicles should be focused more on people in rural Ireland who don't have access to public transport in the same way as we do in Dublin or other cities,” he said.

“We should be targeting our subsidies and our taxes based on who is putting the most burden on the roads, or who has fewest or most choices.

“I don't think there's a proposal here to increase the overall tax burden.

“It's about shifting how we tax things to make sure we can, in fact, fund the roads network and so on into the future.”

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Dublin Ireland at night. Image: Alamy Stock Photo