Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I move:

That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to Ban Private Jet Aircraft from Irish Airspace Bill 2023.

I noted the Tánaiste's earlier response to Deputy Bacik, when he said that the Government will do anything to help reduce emissions. Here is a good idea for this Government. The Bill is very simple. We have a climate emergency, both globally and nationally. We are failing on all fronts to address it, despite years of the Green Party propping up a Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government. Despite the pleadings of the Government and their explanations, our emissions are rising at a shocking level. We are the worst in the European Union. Meanwhile, the latest science is screaming at us that we are heading rapidly to the point of crossing thresholds and catastrophic consequences.

I note yesterday's report by the World Meteorological Organization that we will breach the 1.5°C level of warming very soon. I have no doubt that will happen, but I have also no confidence that globally or nationally we will address the underlying causes of that catastrophe. Those are the insatiable needs of our economic system to expand to seek profits.

We introduce this Bill in the same week that the Government proudly announced that it would remove all car parking spaces from public sector workers. We introduce this Bill in the same month that the Government rubbished calls for the provision of free public transport. Telling workers who have no access to public transport and telling others who cannot afford to retrofit their homes or to buy an electric vehicle, EV, that they must change their behaviour is guaranteed to fail and to breed cynicism and climate denial.

The climate crisis is not caused by the personal choices of ordinary people. It is caused by the economic imperatives of the capitalist system, by the lifestyles and the desires of the 1% of the global elite population and by the efforts of the fossil fuel industry.

One of the reasons for our rising emissions figures is aviation emissions. Aviation, however, rather like shipping, is a kind-of twilight zone where each nation tries to say, "Well, it is not really our issue". Together, however, they are intimately connected with the climate crisis.

The planet and the climate do not care about carbon trading or inventive accounting. The most shocking aspect of aviation is the growth in, and the carbon footprint of, private jet use. This is an example of personal behaviours that must change and where there are clear alternatives on commercial flights. In 2021 alone, 6,600 private jets departed from Ireland. There is no excuse for their use. They are a status symbol of the rich and signal that the rich do not care ande that climate change is for little people. The Bill is part of a global move to challenge that and to highlight that it is the rich and their economic system that is destroying our planet.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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We are in a climate emergency and rapidly running out of time to avoid catastrophe. One of the most disgusting elements of this climate crisis is that those who are most responsible suffer the least, while those who are least responsible suffer most. The top 1% of the richest people in the world are responsible for 16% of all carbon emissions. That figure rises year after year. However, those people can pay to be immune from the consequences of climate change. This is not so for the more than 40,000 who died last year in the Horn of Africa as the consequence of a famine primarily caused by climate change, the millions who will lose their lives in the coming years as a consequence of climate change or the hundred of millions who face being displaced as a consequence. Private jets are the epitome of this social and climate injustice. The average private jet owner has personal wealth of €1.3 billion. A private jet flying in or out of Ireland on average emits 10 tonnes of CO₂. That is roughly equivalent to what the average person in this country emits over an entire year, or the equivalent of driving approximately 40,000 km. As Deputy Smith said, last year almost 7,000 private jets departed from Ireland. That is up 159% on the year before. We have a total carbon budget left of approximately 320 gigatonnes of CO₂to give us a 50% chance to avoid temperatures rising 1.5^OC. We have just more than 1,000 gigatonnes left to give us a 50% chance to avoid temperature rises of 2^OC or higher. Every year, 40 gigatonnes are emitted and that gives us about eight years of emissions. Every single tonne of CO₂emitted on conspicuous consumption of the rich or on military expenditure is CO₂that is not spent on what is needed in regard to a rapid, just transition that improves the lives of ordinary people and avoids disaster for humanity.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Is the Bill being opposed?

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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It is not being opposed.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Since this is a Private Members' Bill, Second Stage must, under Standing Orders, be taken in Private Members' time.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."