Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 30 November 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport
National Aviation Policy: Ryanair
Mr. Michael O'Leary:
At the moment, the fuel companies are working on developing sustainable aviation fuels but the volumes are tiny. They are minuscule. We are investing about €2 million a year with Trinity College, which has had remarkable success in the environmental area. There are some remarkable genius professors. Sustainable aviation fuel is a well-known technology but they are researching how to step up the volume. They are looking at building it from algae and all these different forms that are way above my pay grade. We cannot just take wheat or rapeseed out of the ground. That is not going to achieve it. They are doing great work. We are having a sustainability conference tomorrow in the business school in Trinity College where we are bringing in the oil companies. Some of our biggest investors are coming to Dublin tonight and we are going to spend tomorrow in Trinity examining how we can increase the funding for sustainable aviation fuels, both research and production. We are trying to infuse the academic with the financial. Some of our bigger investors are bringing their environmental, social and governance, ESG, teams to Dublin because it is an area, as the Senator rightly says, that we have to do much more on.
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