WE KNOW that four major world cities – Paris, Mexico, Madrid, and Athens – have agreed to ban all diesel cars and trucks from their centres by 2025.
And yet in Ireland, we cannot even bring ourselves to raise the tax a little bit and try and stop the rush by consumers towards buying diesel vehicles to avail of cheaper fuel.
This is the second year in a row that Minister Michael Noonan has been asked to consider the equalisation of duty on petrol and diesel.
This year, he again rejected the advice of his own civil servants, Transport Minister Shane Ross, and the urgings of the OECD to do something to stop the “dieselisation” of the Irish vehicle fleet.
We know that diesel is a dirtier fuel and a major contributor to air pollution and yet the choice is made to do nothing.
Here is a copy of the submission made to the minister. A similar option was presented to him last year and also ignored.
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab
In a statement, the Department of Finance said: “The Budget 2017 Environmental taxes submission to the Minister outlined a number of options for raising revenue from mineral oil taxes, including the OECD recommendation around diesel equalisation.
“In the context of the Tax Strategy Group process a wide range of options are put forward across all tax heads. Ultimately, it is a matter for the Minister and the Government to decide on the composition of the budget taking into account of the cumulative impact of all the taxation and spending measures introduced on the cost of doing business and on wider society.”
