Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What we are saying is there are six COMs, three of them are aviation related, one is maritime related and one is to do with cars and so on, and the Department is not telling us we need to flag any of them, but we may choose to say the aviation one is just too vague or that the car one is. We do not manufacture cars but obviously over time cars are to be become more efficient. We all accept that cars should become more efficient. At this stage, we could talk around this for a long time but there is nothing easy about the climate change stuff apart from certain things that are easy, relatively speaking, such as insulating houses and so on. However, this is quite difficult.

The Chair is right that it is very important, it is going to affect all of our lives, and it is going to affect Ireland more than many other EU states because it is aviation and maritime related. The maritime sector is not huge in the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Germany, Hungary and some other countries. Certainly there are alternatives to aviation we just do not have. As a committee we need to be aware that, for aviation, the emissions trading system, ETS, the optioning of rights and the abolition of the free credits are concerns. I do not know how much it works out at per flight. If the Department told me we are talking about 50 cent per flight, I might live with it. If the Department told me €50 per flight, I might be much more concerned about it. The vagueness is what concerns me about the whole thing.