Green Party/political commentary thread.

zulutango

DarkJager wrote: »

I suspect that other countries who are clamouring to introduce Carbon Levy (which in current economic circumstances isn't a good idea anywhere) aren't anywhere near €3 for 2 litres of petrol. Its a stupid ill thought out stealth tax, that is there to punish people for using cars and drive them on to a sub standard public transport system or cycle a bicycle. Tree hugging nonsense, much like everything the Green party based itself on.

I'm afraid it's a bit rich to accuse anyone else of speaking nonsense when you write the above! The carbon tax on two litres of petrol amounts to about 8c, not €3.

DarkJager

zulutango wrote: »

I'm afraid it's a bit rich to accuse anyone else of speaking nonsense when you write the above! The carbon tax on two litres of petrol amounts to about 8c, not €3.

The Government tax take from the price alone is nearly 70%. The current price of petrol is nearing €1.48 per litre, and thats with your carbon tax on it. No wonder Gormless cycles a bicycle because he certainly doesn't have a ****ing clue what its like to be a motorist.

zulutango

DarkJager wrote: »

The Government tax take from the price alone is nearly 70%. The current price of petrol is nearing €1.48 per litre, and thats with your carbon tax on it. No wonder Gormless cycles a bicycle because he certainly doesn't have a ****ing clue what its like to be a motorist.

Sorry, I am talking about the carbon levy on petrol, which is pretty small.

You seem to be talking about general taxation on petrol which is a different argument and nothing to do with the Greens.

You seem to be confusing the two.

DarkJager

zulutango wrote: »

Sorry, I am talking about the carbon levy on petrol, which is pretty small.

You seem to be talking about general taxation on petrol which is a different argument and nothing to do with the Greens.

You seem to be confusing the two.

Regardless, their extra 8c "save the planet" levy is still putting 8c more on to the cost of petrol and it all adds up the more litres you put in. An unneccesary 8c extra, so the Greens can feel good about themselves.

As the economy is now in **** (like the majority of taxpayers), its now time for all this tree hugging bull**** nonsense to get out. Its not relevant now, and all these policies to cut carbon and save trees etc are hitting people in the pocket at a time when they need their money the most.

krudler

DarkJager wrote: »

Regardless, their extra 8c "save the planet" levy is still putting 8c more on to the cost of petrol and it all adds up the more litres you put in. An unneccesary 8c extra, so the Greens can feel good about themselves.

As the economy is now in **** (like the majority of taxpayers), its now time for all this tree hugging bull**** nonsense to get out. Its not relevant now, and all these policies to cut carbon and save trees etc are hitting people in the pocket at a time when they need their money the most.

We should all do what the greens clearly do, cycle to work on our handcrafted bikes made from homegrown wood.

DarkJager

krudler wrote: »

We should all do what the greens clearly do, cycle to work on our handcrafted bikes made from homegrown wood.

I had a great idea to invite Gormley around to watch me burning a stack of tires, just so I could see the little carbon neutral tears roll down his face. Unfortunately after Friday, he'll just be another tree hugger out of a job and there won't be much point.

Insect Overlord

I've spliced these posts over from the Ask The Candidate thread. zulutango (and others), the questions posed in that thread should be answered by Sheila, and not turned into a general political chat. Otherwise the system won't work.

Anyway, carry on here as ye were over there.

phill106

zulutango wrote: »

You'll have to agree that it might not be feasible to have public transport serving every little boreen in the country?

Again, to be fair to the Greens, their policy is to develop strong towns and cities that are adequately serviced by public transport, as well as all other vital services. Having a population so widely dispersed as we currently have just makes life difficult (and bloody expensive!!) for everyone. We actually have the most widely dispersed population in Europe. It just makes no sense at all.

Not to every boreen though, but where they are in place, they need to work well enough so that is a viable alternative to owning a car. That includes running late at night and early morning. We have 24 hour bus lanes in limerick with no 24 hour buses to run on them, where is the logic in that?

krudler

phill106 wrote: »

Not to every boreen though, but where they are in place, they need to work well enough so that is a viable alternative to owning a car. That includes running late at night and early morning. We have 24 hour bus lanes in limerick with no 24 hour buses to run on them, where is the logic in that?

This is Ireland, common sense and logic went out the window with our economy and future.

osarusan

I agree that the idea of making life more difficult and expensive for motorists in order to push them towards public transport is stupid when that public transport is hopelessly inadequate (though many of the bus routes in the city have busses into the city centre before 8, and last bus back is after 10.30)

But Limerick is far too small a city for a 24 hour bus service.

phill106

osarusan wrote: »

I agree that the idea of making life more difficult and expensive for motorists in order to push them towards public transport is stupid when that public transport is hopelessly inadequate (though many of the bus routes in the city have busses into the city centre before 8, and last bus back is after 10.30)

But Limerick is far too small a city for a 24 hour bus service.

Wouldnt mind a few busses to shannon after 11pm, costs a fortune to get taxis if i go out in limerick.

So we can get rid of the 24 hour bus lanes so....

Grumpypants

DarkJager wrote: »

Regardless, their extra 8c "save the planet" levy is still putting 8c more on to the cost of petrol and it all adds up the more litres you put in. An unneccesary 8c extra, so the Greens can feel good about themselves.

As the economy is now in **** (like the majority of taxpayers), its now time for all this tree hugging bull**** nonsense to get out. Its not relevant now, and all these policies to cut carbon and save trees etc are hitting people in the pocket at a time when they need their money the most.

This makes no sense, you complain that the economy is gone to the dogs yet a tiny tax that goes straight into creating jobs and boosting the economy you moan about having to pay

This carbon tax of 3c goes straight into renewable energies and retro fitting houses and if you know anyone working in construction these are the only growing sectors. The 80cent that the other parties have put on petrol just goes into the pot to be wasted.

So what you a proposing is to remove this tax put another few thousand people out of work to help the economy

phill106

Actually the petrol and diesel taxing has already gone beyond diminishing returns. People are now driving less as a direct result of the high prices of fuel. Next government will have to lower the amount of revenue they get from fuel, the taxes were set when fuel prices were low and out economy steady.

DarkJager

Grumpypants wrote: »

This makes no sense, you complain that the economy is gone to the dogs yet a tiny tax that goes straight into creating jobs and boosting the economy you moan about having to pay

This carbon tax of 3c goes straight into renewable energies and retro fitting houses and if you know anyone working in construction these are the only growing sectors. The 80cent that the other parties have put on petrol just goes into the pot to be wasted.

So what you a proposing is to remove this tax put another few thousand people out of work to help the economy

Goes straight in to creating jobs and boosting the economy??? Show me where this has happened and how a levy on petrol is doing anything for either of them. In fact, for businesses relying on transport and for employees who use their cars for work - the cost has risen significantly. I think that has more chance of shutting down business and hitting people in the pocket more than anything its patethic existance could contribute to job creation or the economy.

If renewable energy and retrofitting is a growing sector, it won't need a carbon tax on fuel to support it so that doesn't make any sense.

This tax hasn't helped any creation of jobs but it sure as hell has all the potential of causing further damage to them.

Grumpypants

DarkJager wrote: »

Goes straight in to creating jobs and boosting the economy??? Show me where this has happened and how a levy on petrol is doing anything for either of them. In fact, for businesses relying on transport and for employees who use their cars for work - the cost has risen significantly. I think that has more chance of shutting down business and hitting people in the pocket more than anything its patethic existance could contribute to job creation or the economy.

If renewable energy and retrofitting is a growing sector, it won't need a carbon tax on fuel to support it so that doesn't make any sense.

This tax hasn't helped any creation of jobs but it sure as hell has all the potential of causing further damage to them.

I would go into explaining why governments need to spend money to create jobs even in growing sectors, or for example why spending money to bring companies such as microsoft, google, paypal and intel to Ireland was important but it would take me too long.

How about you show me how a 3 cent tax on petrol is having a worse effect on business than the 80cent tax on petrol.

Kess73

zulutango wrote: »

Semantics

One in ten cars is pretty commonplace, no? I'm sure we all agree that cars will be powered by electricity in the not too distant future, and we should prepare for that.

Yeah but the 1 in 10 was their best case scenario. But seeing as the plan to have the first 3530 recharge stations (3500 standard charge points mationwide and 30 fast charge points for Dublin) up and running by the end of December this year is already well behind schedule after almost two months of the year, I won't be holding out much hope for the final figure for 2020 being anywhere close to 1 in 10.

The charge points scheduled for 2010 also fell below the minimum amount that was forecast.

My gut tells me it will be like many of the other projects that the Finna Fail/Green government were quick to pat themselves on the back in public over.

Lots of big promises followed by failure to hit minimum year on year targets.