Fuels for Ireland drops NORA levy challenge

Kevin McPartlan, CEO of Fuels for Ireland, has welcomed news announced in the recent budget that the National Oil Reserves Agency (NORA) levy will be reduced to zero.

While Minister for Finance Pascal Donohue announced in his Budget that the rate per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted for petrol and diesel will go up from €41 to €48.50 from 12 October, this carbon tax would be offset with a reduction to zero of the National Oil Reserves Agency (NORA) levy because of the cost-of-living challenge.

This was welcomed by Fuels for Ireland, which had launched a State Aid complaint over the NORA levy in recent years, branding it unfair and saying it discriminates against households, farms and businesses in rural Ireland.

“We’ve long said that the NORA levy was inappropriate because the government had decided to use the NORA levy to fund the Climate Action Fund,” CEO Kevin McPartlan said.

“We have no issue with the Climate Action Fund – it’s an important part of our response to the climate emergency and the projects that it funds are absolutely first class, but the issue that we had with it was that only oil consumers were picking up the tab for it.

“We believe that if the polluter must pay, which is the central tenet of the government’s policy, then all polluters should pay – and all polluters should pay fairly. So the idea that we would pick up the entire cost of the Climate Action Fund while people who use solid fuels or gas or whatever else pay nothing was unjust, and that’s why we took our State Aid complaint last year.”

Read more in the latest edition of Ireland’s Forecourt Retailer.