Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2023-11-21
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Leo Varadkar (FG), Dublin West

Please do.
The condition of the seawater at Seapoint and Dún Laoghaire in Dublin Bay after heavy rain has not been discussed at Cabinet subcommittee level, but I will bring it to the attention of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. My understanding is that the Poolbeg upgrade is supposed to deal with that. I hope it will. I will seek further information on it.
I did not have a chance to read the Oxfam report - I have seen the summary - but it will not be a huge revelation to anyone that the richest people produce the most emissions. They have the biggest houses and cars and they fly most often, so it stands to reason that they produce the most emissions. There are all sorts of carbon taxes that now apply to people using fuel in their cars, emissions trading systems and so on. The evidence around wealth taxes imposed unilaterally by individual countries is not good. They tend not to raise very much money and tend to lead to wealth leaving for lower tax jurisdictions, which would mean everyone becoming worse off and would not help with funding climate action.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-11-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:25+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-11-21