"Green" policies are destroying this country

You think the public in general are going to be happy if SF continue raising carbon taxes and implementing other economy retarding measures? Same circus different clowns if that happens, and they won't get a second term.

For someone who has no time for the Green Party and never voted for them, with you spending so much time defending them against anyone who is not enthralled by them you are beginning to come across like another poster here who likewise says he has no connection to them, has never voted for them either, yet has defended even the most inane Ryan utterances and could not bring himself to make even the most minor of criticism of the actions of green "warriors" sneaking around at night slashing tyres. Even to the extent that you included one of his posts in your reply.

I`m very aware of how government works and how coalition governments are formed. A negotiated programme for government allows the tail of the dog party to have policies included that, with their seat numbers, otherwise would never see the light of day. It also leaves them with a card to play of collapsing the government if they do not get their way.

Did it ever cross your mind that those rotten corpses of minor government parties were due to the electorate not being much enamoured by the results of those policies and showed that the next time they got the chance ?

As I said, on the 3rd world it doesn`t matter, but for someone who earlier in the day thought billions had been wasted on food programmes you now appear to see it as money well spent.

Best of luck with the hope that SF if it is the next goverment will suddently drop all it`s promised large spends on housing, health etc in favor of green policies. Especially with a tax-take predicted to shrink.

We agree. But none of that has anything to do with the tax change as it was based on CO2, and the cheating was for NOx.

The understanding of CO2 may have been the right thing at the time, but hindsight showed the stupidity of it. Namely, big powered cars now taxed for a song. I'd disagree on the mass behavioral change. It's what the tax was designed to do. Now if the thinking was wrong then, what else is being implemented now that is wrong? We know bundling methane as equivalent to CO2 is wrong, yet it's not being rectified (GWP100 vs. GWP*).

I agreed with it as the lower polluting cars should be incentivised and that's what it did. The practicalities though resulted in bigger, dirtier vehicles on the roads, with more maintenance as diesels weren't suitable for many urban dwellers, but the cheap tax enticed them to it.

No problem incentivising people to buy new cars if it means their used cars are avaliable at reasonable prices to people looking to get rid of their older dirtier cars. A win win for the environment, in particular air quality in more urban areas

Cars are already heavily taxed on km's driven. The duty on fuel is astronomical already and only going one way. It should be a flat registration fee for any car and if you want to do lots of mileage or drive a gas gussler then you are already taking a big hit.

According to SIMI there's over 42000 imported second hand cars, newly registered in Ireland to mid October this year, the import business is alive and well

Is you are displaying your true colours - rudeness personified.

Not sure if this has been posted yet: seeing as examples suiting certain peoples ideals are posted here ( no matter where in the world it emanates from ), the Dutch have reversed their decision on capping flights into & out of Schipol:

https://ittn.ie/travel-news/netherlands-abandons-proposal-to-limit-flights-at-amsterdam-schiphol-airport/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20ITTN%20eBulletins&utm_content=Daily%20ITTN%20eBulletins+CID_525a36091baa01760465fab496f58816&utm_source=CFEmail&utm_term=Netherlands%20Abandons%20Proposal%20to%20Limit%20Flights%20at%20Amsterdam%20Schiphol%20Airport