Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
First to the news that half a billion euro raised by fuel taxes for climate projects still has not been spent. Financial statements from the Climate Action Fund show that 70% of the money raised through the fuel levy in the past five years is still sitting in the bank. This is the two cent levy that the government was forced to reduce in March as part of the package to control fuel prices.
So what should happen with it and why is it not being spent? I'm joined by Firstly, by Aisling Maloney, who reports on this with the Irish independent Aisling is political reporter with the Indo. Good morning to you, Aisling.
Chapter 2: What is the significance of the half-a-billion euro raised for climate projects?
Good morning, Clare. So tell me about this money. How much is sitting there and where has it come from?
So people will be aware, or maybe they're not aware, that on every litre of petrol that you buy, two cent goes to the National Oil Reserve Agency. Now, that agency takes that money in and the vast majority of that levy goes to the Climate Action Fund. This is happening since 2020. A change in the law meant that they'd
put most of that two cent levy into the Climate Action Fund to fund climate action measures like solar panels on top of school buildings or electric vehicle chargers and electric vehicle charging infrastructure around the country, initiatives like that. So they've collected over 500 million euro in that levy in the last, since 2020 and up to 2024.
And analysis that we did on the financial statements shows that the Climate Action Fund had 278 million euro sitting in its bank account at the end of 2024. So basically, the Climate Action Fund, every year from 2020 to 2024, it was in surplus.
So they didn't spend all the money that came in and there was money left sitting in the account, which has accumulated to the level of 278 million at the end of 2024. Now, they're the latest financial statements we're able to get access to. The 2025 statement for the fund hasn't yet been published. So that means that that's 278 million euro.
But that's also combined with the story that we had in the Irish Independent recently as well, that the carbon tax. So this is another tax you're paying on fuel. And that was supposed to be ring fenced for climate action measures. But we learned recently that 250 million euro of that. So another half a billion or another quarter of a billion, which makes it all a half a billion.
has not been spent and it went back to the exchequer. So we see there the taxes that we are being told we're paying to fund climate action measures, half of it went back to the exchequer and half has been sitting there unspent.
That's a really crucial point because the government has been banging that drum now on carbon tax from the get-go, that this money is ring-fenced for climate action projects. But what you're telling us is that when it's not spent, it goes back into the big pot.
Exactly. So with the carbon tax, what happened between 2020 and 2023, there was around €258 million that wasn't spent and they put it back into the Exchequer.
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Chapter 3: Why is 70% of the Climate Action Fund still unspent?
And this story I have today is about combining that with the Climate Action Fund, which has been left sitting in a bank account. Now, the government are saying that they've committed to funding climate action projects with some of the money in the Climate Action Fund to the tune of about €200 million going forward. But... the money is still in the bank account at the end of 2024.
So you might have allocated it, but nothing has been administered. And you're talking about four years where money was accumulating and nothing was, or a large portion of it, should I say, was not being administered to schemes and pushed out to help fund climate action measures.
Now, the government are saying, and as I said, I can't see the 2025 financial statements, but the department in a statement told me that 2025 was the first year that the fund was in deficit. So, i.e., they spent all of the money that came in that year. And they said that this is part of a multi-annual project.
But I think people who have been paying these taxes on their fuel over the last number of years, I suppose in good faith that they were going to climate action measures, but
Chapter 4: How is the Climate Action Fund funded through fuel levies?
We may be disappointed to hear that they're either being put back into the government exchequer fund overall or they're sitting there waiting to be administered and not yet spent.
Yeah, but we can't get it together to spend it on what it's supposed to be spent on. Pa Daly is with me as well, Sinn Féin TD and Environment spokesperson. Good morning to you.
Good morning, Clare. What do you think of this? Yeah, well, first of all, well done to Aisling on a very good story. The background, of course, to this is that Europe is warming twice as fast, we saw in a report this week, as other parts of the world, as the global average.
And we've seen the climate crisis is here and it's now, and we see that in flooding and we see that in the crisis in biodiversity. We already knew, just following on from what Aisling says, that a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General, that only 61% of the carbon taxes was actually ring-fenced and there is no central tracking system.
So it's about whether the government is actually managing the money that is coming in in a proper way and in a fair way. And we already knew about the no central tracking system, but now 70% from Aisling's story of the money raised has been left sitting there. So we have been saying in Sinn Féin for many years that carbon taxes do not work simply as a behavioural test unless...
there is realistic, affordable and alternative heating for people. And many, many people in rural, in low-income earners, renters, they don't have that choice to transition over.
You started by outlining the problems with climate change. But yet Sinn Féin want to scrap carbon tax altogether rather than coming on today and saying, well, we're collecting this tax, let's spend it the way it is supposed to be spent.
Yeah, well, see, the problem with carbon taxes is, first of all, it raises living costs. It deepens inequality and it punishes people and it generates revenue without delivering proper alternatives for people. And then resentment builds up in some people who can't afford... people who are locked out of the transition because they can't get into it.
So what we do need is we do need more targeted retrofitting because you see from the reports from the SRI that retrofitting heat pumps is a fraction of the targets that it should have been by 2024.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the carbon tax on climate action funding?
And that will be borne out in time. In the meantime, Aisling Maloney, thank you very much for joining us. Pat Daly from Sinn Féin and Oisín Coughlan.
The Clare Byrne Show with Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at nine on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.