Home Heating Oil (Emergency Mineral Oil Tax Reduction) Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-09-22 ============================================================ Paul Lawless (AON), Mayo Carbon tax is regressive taxation. It punishes the poorest people in society. The people who are paying the most carbon tax and most fuel taxation are those in diesel and petrol cars, many of whom will never be able to afford solar panels or electric vehicles. Many are renters who will never have the opportunity to retrofit their homes. That is the truth. Carbon tax punishes the poorest people in society. I want to be clear. Five years ago, every party in this Chamber, with the exception of Aontú and a few good Independent TDs, voted in favour of the climate action legislation. Everyone with a bit of cop-on knew that this would lead to an aggressive carbon taxation policy. I welcome the U-turn and rhetoric change across this side of the House, but the level of groupthink in----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-22