Budget 2019

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 deise316 wrote:

The Government of the time (FF coalition, but the Green party in this particular instance) are singlehandedly to blame for the diesel fiasco, effectively taxing petrol cars out of the market in 2008 & forcing a mass switch to diesel.  The actual solution is to get those people who are driving diesels (& petrols for that matter) but don't need them, ie driving them short distances in urban population centres, out of them & into electric cars when & where possible, with suitable incentives if necessary. As Tom mentioned, the cost of the inevitable fine could be billions and cost more than any incentives. 
They won't be able to achieve this because the brainless f**kers won't pass the opportunity to absolutely financially fleece all diesel drivers, even those that do need them. Not to mention the road hauliers or farmers, though there isn't any mass produced alternative to diesel trucks & tractors at the minute, so they will be left alone for a while. Then diesel cars then become worthless overnight, some of them with money owed on them, a negative equity for cars, if ya like. We were here before, with cars in 2008 and with houses not too long after. Seems we've learned a lot. 
In the bigger picture, the infrastructure isn't there for electric cars, meaning dozens of thousands of plug in points (no, yer car can't be charged from the 3 pin plug in your house) and where does electricity come from anyway ? With the focus on renewable resources, the national grid would have to be expanded, which means more of those lovely wind farms.  Electricity can also be economically produced by nuclear power, but nobody wants either of those things either.

The big elephant in the picture, or cow in this case, is the fact that agriculture as an industry is responsible for most of our emissions, far more than transport or manufacturing and those are naturally occurring emissions, basically animal excretions or slurry. Agriculture is also responsible for about 10% of all our exports, a not insignificant sum either. Whatever about individual politicians, all our main parties are split between urban & rural, so are unlikely to vote in anything that would damage or reduce that export industry, even if it comes at the cost of not meeting emissions targets. 

Therefore, if nothing is going to be done about that, the solution lies in technology to reduce emissions, and our investment in same is negligible on the scale of what is required. Whatever the worst possible solution is, that is least beneficial to health, the economy or the individual taxpayer, I have full confidence in our government to find that exact solution.  I'm not pointing at FG either, they may or may not be around when whatever plan is implemented, but we can be assured that none of the rest will do any better with the subject. 

If the party set up primarily for environmental issues could send the country down the wrong road for an entire decade, their actions worsening both the economy and  the environment, I wouldn't be holding out too much hope for the rest of them, who are really only fundamentally interested in keeping ''the markets'' happy. 

For now keeping the markets happy is easy for the government... Just do the complete opposite to what the Italians are doing 

But in all seriousness we're a country run by crooks with Naughten the latest to show his true corrupt colours. In a normal functioning state he would have resigned or be on the precipice this week.

Budget 2019

Budget 2019