Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This matter relates to Dublin Airport and the impact of private jets on the passenger cap that applies. There has been a great deal of talk about the cap on passengers at the airport, but there has not been much discussion of how private jets are feeding into that. The Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, told the transport committee that it would have to consider limiting so-called general aviation in order to remain within the passenger cap. However, we know that general aviation is a broad church and that it includes the decadent use of private jets by a privileged few. A single flight of a private jet is responsible for the emission of approximately ten times more carbon dioxide per person than a regular commercial flight and a staggering 50 times more than the average train journey. The carbon footprint of such extravagance is incredible, with some private jets spewing out 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hour, surpassing the per capitacarbon emissions of Ireland, which stood at 7.3 tonnes per person in 2019.

Data from Greenpeace reveals a disturbing surge in private flights departing from Ireland. Between 2020 and 2022, the number of private flights departing from our airports soared from 858 to a staggering 6,671, with CO₂emissions escalating from 3,072 tonnes to an alarming 67,903 tonnes. Dublin Airport appears to be serving as the epicentre of this crime against climate action. It alone witnessed 3,445 private flight departures in 2022.

Of particular concern is the prevalence of short-haul private flights. Taylor Swift was in the headlines for taking a 13-minute flight in America. However, there were several similarly unjustifiable flights like that in Ireland in 2022. There were 11 between Kerry and Cork, at just over 79 km. A train takes just an 80 minutes to complete that journey. There were 14 flights between Dublin and Belfast in 2020, a distance of 137 km. A train can cover that ground in two hours and five minutes.

Has the Government given consideration to taking a leaf out of France’s book? France took the simple measure of banning such short-haul flights on any journeys that are possible to complete in less than two and a half hours by train. Beyond climate concerns, private jets also contribute significantly to noise pollution, prompting airports like Schiphol in the Netherlands to crack down on the number of departures by such jets. The communities impacted in Fingal are deeply impacted on the noise pollution from Dublin Airport. I am sure they would welcome any reduction in noise pollution.

This brings me back to the situation in Dublin Airport. The head of the DAA told the joint committee on transport that it would need to curtail the number of flights by private jets in order to stay within the passenger cap. This clearly alarmed the private jet industry because the National Business Aviation Association, NBAA, sent a letter to the Irish ambassador in Washington and the press outlining its displeasure at this move. It defended the use of private jets, arguing that the flights are necessary for the Irish economy, because heaven forfend that the captains of industry would have to fly first class on commercial flights, with the riff-raff down the back on the same planes. In the event that the passenger limit is not increased to 40 million, the NBAA would like to ensure that they can have 20,000 passengers ring-fenced from the 32 million allocation. These people are seeking to double the capacity of private jets at Dublin Airport. While the operators of commercial flights face constraints in order to mitigate the impact of those flights, granting preferential treatment to private jets would fly in the face not only of climate action but also just transition.