Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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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.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Boylan for raising this matter, which I am taking ,on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Jack Chambers.

The use of private jets during the climate emergency for leisure and luxury is clearly an obscenity. However, such use is mixed up in the general figures for aviation, as the Senator understands, in the context of everything that is not a commercial flight. It includes such things as Defence Forces flights, medical flights and cargo flights.The question was what impact private jets are having on the passenger cap. The answer to that is simply almost none because very few passengers are carried by non-commercial airlines, as opposed to in commercial flights. Some 99.95% of passengers going through Dublin Airport travel on commercial airlines. Approximately 32 million passengers is the cap in Dublin Airport at the moment and 16,000 passengers go through anything that is not a commercial flight. If we were to completely ban all cargo, all Defence Forces flights, all medical flights and all private jets, we would save 0.05 % on the number of passengers. Of course, the passenger cap is a strange thing. It is imposed by a planning condition, but we should really be looking at an emissions cap. It does not matter how many passengers are carried. What is more important is how many flights take off, or better than that, the emissions of the airport.

Dublin Airport serves as a major transport hub for millions of business and leisure travellers. It facilitates global connectivity and the movement of goods on and off our island. Senators will be aware that a cap of 32 million passengers per annum is currently in place at Dublin Airport. The passenger cap is a condition attached to the planning permission granted for Terminal 2. Dublin Airport is currently working to address the cap through the submission of an infrastructure application to the planning authority. This forms part of Dublin Airport Authority, DAA’s, capital investment programme and seeks to raise the 32 million passenger cap to 40 million passengers. The application, which was submitted to the planning authority in December, also seeks to increase capacity.

Increasing the capacity of Dublin Airport is in line with national aviation policy which recognises the strategic importance of Dublin Airport in meeting national social and economic policy goals and includes a specific objective of developing Dublin Airport as a hub with the necessary capacity to connect key existing and emerging global markets. While the importance of the airport to Ireland’s island economy is recognised, it is important to the Government to ensure the sustainable development of Dublin Airport, to balance the objectives of the national aviation policy, the needs of business and tourism interests and the legitimate rights of local residents.

As the Senator will be aware, DAA has the statutory responsibility for the operation, management and development of Dublin Airport including the compliance with any planning conditions attached to planning permissions granted for developments at the airport. It is DAA’s responsibility to engage with the relevant planning authorities on all planning matters including for the lifting of the cap and the development of new infrastructure required to support increased connectivity. I advise Senators that the Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Act 2019 provides a wholly independent aircraft noise regulation process in accordance with EU law and established the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority, ANCA, as the independent noise regulator. The Act also provides that all future development at Dublin Airport is subject to assessment and mitigation in respect of the impact of associated aircraft movements on the noise environment around Dublin Airport. This provides a safeguard against any award of planning permission until such time as the proposal has been fully assessed in relation to aviation noise impacts. It is likely that this process will take some time to conclude.

While aviation accounts for approximately 3% of global carbon emissions, DAA has a plan to decarbonise the airport. DAA announced at the launch of its environmental sustainability initiatives last week that it is fully focused on reducing carbon emissions generated by its operations - including scope 1 and 2 emissions - by 51% by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050, at the latest. Regarding emissions from aircraft operations, a number of measures have been adopted at EU level to seek to achieve this target. On general aviation, I am advised that there were 7,842 general aviation movements including private jets at Dublin Airport in 2023. The number of movements was more than 10% less than in 2022 when there were 8,787 movements. In terms of a percentage of passenger numbers, general aviation constituted only 0.052% of the passengers at Dublin Airport last year.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State. I know general aviation includes medical and military flights and such. However, I am sure the National Business Aviation Association is not writing to defend them. When it writes to and lobbies ambassadors in Washington and sends letters to the press looking to double the capacity for private jets, it is not for medical flights. It is specifically for those frivolous flights that people who believe they are above and beyond flying on a regular passenger plane take.

I welcome the fact that the Minister of State takes on board the issue of emissions, but will the emissions cap be per capita? Private jets contribute per capitaa much higher percentage of emissions than people who take one or two flights a year for personal or business reasons. That is an important aspect. While the figures the Minister of State cited differ from the figures I have from Greenpeace, I wonder whether it would be possible to get a breakdown of the figure for general aviation to see what is the percentage of medical and military flights and what is the percentage of private jets.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Boylan and I am glad that she agrees that we should be looking at emissions rather than passenger numbers and at emissions per capita. I will look to see whether I can get a good breakdown of general aviation so we are not mixing up private jets with medical flights, cargo and so on.

Much of this debate emerged with a provocative and noisy campaign by Ryanair saying it would like the Minister or the Department of Transport to intervene in planning conditions which it knew was not legal or possible to do. When I look at this kind of showmanship by Ryanair, I wonder why is it coming out with this kind of statement, why is it putting out these provocative and insulting statements rather than addressing the substantial issues as we are doing today. It is asking people to look at the left hand so they do not look at what the right hand is doing. The truth is that Ryanair presents itself as a low-fares airline. However, its fares went up 24% last year. When I looked at the cost of a flight to London or Paris this week, flying on 15 or 17 February, I see that Ryanair is €100 more expensive than its nearest rival for a flight to London and it is also more expensive to fly with Ryanair to Paris this week, than it is with other airlines.