Mr. Kenny Jacobs:

That is the Dublin Airport we want to give Ireland and the €2 billion investment we want to make in infrastructure. It is a Dublin Airport that can have 40 million passengers a year, with those passengers creating less CO2 than 32 million passengers would today. A significant amount of that infrastructure application is for investments in sustainability, including a solar farm, new drainage, and new terminals with more modern heating and electricity. The emissions for every passenger going through a 40-million passenger Dublin Airport would be less than the emissions we would have if we did not do this infrastructure application. An airport is like a house. If you do not do the insulation, double-glaze the windows, have a modern boiler and so on, the energy usage will continue to go up. Sustainability at Dublin Airport, or at any airport in Ireland or globally, will ultimately go backwards unless they are modernised with modern infrastructure. About €500 million in the infrastructure application is for sustainability investments. I know some people said that cannot possibly be the case, but it is. If we cap Dublin Airport and do not invest in infrastructure, sustainability will go backwards, which is not what we want.

We are looking to grow Dublin Airport by 25%, from 32 million to 40 million. That 25% increase in capacity, which we think Ireland needs, matches the 20% to 25% population increase that is forecast between now and about 2040. Ireland's population is growing and Dublin Airport needs to grow for sustainability, to protect our connectivity, to protect businesses and to create new jobs. That is ultimately what we are looking to do. What we just saw in the presentation is a world-class airport. It is a much better experience for everybody using Dublin Airport, whether going with Ryanair on a short-haul flight to the sun or long haul with Aer Lingus or somebody else. It is a much better passenger experience and much better for sustainability, with great public transport connectivity to the terminal. That is what we would love to see and what we will submit to Fingal County Council on 13 December.

An appropriate planning framework is critical. I know the Bill was announced this morning. We have not had a chance to go through that. We had a number of key asks regarding the planning and development Bill and a national planning framework. We would like An Bord Pleanála appeals to be fast-tracked; curial deference, with no encroachment on regulated areas; planning exemptions for certain infrastructure; design flexibility for strategic infrastructure; a fast-track process where no planning issues arise, which would really help us to make many of those improvements; the publication of draft decisions on highly complex or technical issues; and transitional arrangements concerning Dublin Airport to be recognised.

On a national planning framework, and we think this would help Fingal because the council ultimately decides on this, it would be good to have a national framework that supports Fingal and any county council that is deciding on vital national infrastructure in which framework there would be a presumption in favour of sustainable development as it relates to global connectivity, which would ensure there was a roadmap for growth to at least 40 million passengers at Dublin Airport, which Fingal fully supports, and which would address the potential conflict between national and local interests. Dublin Airport is Ireland's airport. Every single day, all 32 counties in the Republic and Northern Ireland use Dublin Airport. It is the national airport and it will continue to be as it grows to 40 million passengers.

I will touch on sustainability, which is a huge issue in aviation. Aviation is now taking sustainability very seriously. For me, this is when we start to get on to scope 3 emissions and aviation is working in its totality. On sustainability, for me, this is about carbon. Aviation is not the enemy. Carbon is the enemy. Aviation needs to make breakthroughs and is working hard to make breakthroughs on how we reduce carbon. Part of that is passengers getting to the terminal on public transport, part is passengers in the airports and part is the airports working with the airlines for when those passengers leave the airport and are in an aircraft in the sky. For the airlines, it is about new aircraft, newer engines and the use of sustainable aviation fuel. For airports - us - it is about reducing energy usage, which we are making good progress on. We have grown as an airport, but we are using less energy. We will continue to do that. We want to take carbon out. We have a net zero target by 2050. We also have a target to reduce our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 51% by 2030.

Those targets on sustainability do not change as we move from 32 million to 40 million. We have to get the infrastructure application in and we have to make these investments under the infrastructure application to hit those targets. That allows us to be an airport providing Ireland with better connectivity and to reduce carbon at the same time, working closely with the airlines. I already mentioned we have announced a discount for airlines with newer aircraft. That is the right thing for an airport to do, because it incentivises those airlines with newer fleets. We want airlines with very high load factors, because there is nothing worse for carbon emissions than empty seats on an aeroplane.

We will really work hard with the airlines, because aviation starts to crack this when you have public transport, the airports and the airlines all working together to reduce carbon emissions. As I said, our sustainability initiatives are: net zero by 2050, green aircraft, zero-waste operations and looking at air and water quality in our local environments.

Our other sustainability initiatives are: surface water environmental compliance, which is a key part of what we are doing; airport charging - that is supporting passengers charging their own electric vehicles, but we are moving to a fully electrified fleet of buses, airside and landside, at the airport; mobility improvements - we have installed cycle lockers, completed way-finding audits and a cycle track is being developed with Fingal County Council; T1 and T2 renewable heating studies; and phase 1 of the solar farm will be kicking off. We were recently awarded the Business Working Responsibly award. We have signed up for the UN Global Compact. We are only one of 60 companies in Ireland to have done that. We are a member of the Government's task force on sustainable aviation fuels.