Professor John Sweeney:

I return to the Deputy's question about other countries' best practice.

Individual countries all have some strengths and weaknesses. I will mention one thing that may be of interest, which is that the French Government has, since 1 March this year, imposed a tax on private flights. That ranges from €210 to €2,100 per passenger for private jets entering the country. We have just under 7,000 private jet flights to Ireland every year. Those are individuals of very high worth, normally, and a tax would be quite appropriate in many cases to discourage unnecessary travel. Most of those flights are between Dublin and London, where there is a very good public and private service available. There are little nuggets that we might look at and that might be possible to investigate in the future. That is just one but there are others.

Every country in Europe has its own strengths. That is why European emissions have fallen by 37% since 1990. That percentage would be higher but for Ireland dragging the total back as a result of our only 4% or 5% reduction since 1990. That creates another imperative for us to go beyond simple equity in this particular carbon budget discussion.