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Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe has rejected calls for the introduction of a scrappage scheme to help boost the car industry.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio today, Mr Cuffe said he was not convinced a scrappage scheme was the best route to take to help save jobs.
"I think that if we are to have a car scrappage scheme it would need to stack up, and it would need to stack up on both economic and environmental grounds," he said. "I suspect it will be hard to make it stand up on both of those counts. When times are hard you've got to look very carefully at how best to use money."
Mr Cuffe said the Government was concentrating on job creation, particularly in the smart economy and knowledge economy.
"I'm not yet convinced that helping car dealers is going to boost the smart economy or knowledge economy," he said.
The Green TD said the money that would be spent on the scheme might be better invested in environmental home improvements, or aiding those in higher level education.
The Society of the Irish Motor Industry today asked the Government to consider a scrappage scheme in its pre-Budget submission, claiming it would help protect 35,000 jobs while also boosting the public coffers. A similar call was made last year, but was not included in Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan's budget.
The idea has the backing of some Fianna Fáil back benchers. Wexford TD Sean Connick last week tabled a motion for a meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party calling on the Minister for Finance to introduce such a scheme.
Mr Connick credited similar schemes in Britain and Germany with increasing sales in both regions. Italy and France have also made similar moves, along with the US.
However, Mr Cuffe said there were fundamental differences between the situation in Ireland and the experiences of other countries.
"The lesson looking abroad at schemes we've had in places like Germany and the States is first of all they have a car industry. In Ireland we don't have a car industry, we have car sales," he said.
