[Seán Defoe] People Before Profit have announced they’re going to table a bill to ban private jets from Irish airspace, subject to a small list of exceptions

34 comments

  4. Ireland is a transit point for a significant amount of transatlantic traffic and is responsible for shared control via Shanwick, so doubt it will pass.

    Could just reroute over the North anyway.

  5. Aren’t there easier ways to reduce having private jets in Irish airspace? People are going to find ways of getting around a ban on private jets in Irish airspace.

  9. Right, so when the senior execs at the multinationals who invest billions into this country want to visit, they’ll have to fly to London and come over using Ryanair.

    Feck off PBP, you’ve never created a job in your life, and you’ll cost us the ones that we do have.

  11. Don’t see the point of this but I will be good to see the green party put in a awkward position when the big wigs tell them which way to vote

  12. Does this bill put “people before profit”?

    Seems more like “spite the rich” for a negligible environmental impact that could feasibly deter business from this country.

    Nobody is grounding those private jets, they will just fly elsewhere.

  17. It’s funny people are downvoting you OP for various weird reasons when you’re right and they should be banned. Got a few shills and wannabe billionaires it seems.
    – It is relevant because private airplanes do cause a lot of harmful emissions and we are a hub.
    – It does target the ultra rich and they really need a break right now /s.
    – It would be harmful to our economy unlike all other environmental decisions again /s

  18. I think it is a good idea, would set a precedent. While it would be a small drop in the ocean emissions wise overall, it would reinforce a notion of equality and that everyone has to make sacrifices. We will all have to have reductions in living standards to reduce emissions, only right the very rich and corporations take a hit too.

  20. This isn’t the right solution, if only Ireland bans them, the US flights will just reroute to France or the UK.

    The EU in its entirety needs to ban private jets. That’ll prevent the unnecessary use of private jets instead of just making them reroute.

    Of course this won’t happen, the same people who fund most politician’s lavish lifestyles, are also the same people recklessly using private jets, but we should still try our damnedest

  22. there is a fairly exclusive Golf club in South Kerry that Americans come over to on their private planes get flown by helicopter from Farranfore people like tiger wood came there before the british open these people are spending here. Also alot of the foreign direct investment companies here that fly senior staff by private jet into ireland. that will cut into our business

    So no. Absolute horse shit proposal making us less friendly to FDI PBP tring to stick it to the man

  26. Air travel is a massive problem. the general public hate talking about it because of guilt and there is no real easy way to green wash the issue Or shift the blame onto some faceless corporate entity. Ordinary People are destroying the environment just so they burn their fat pasty white Irish arses on a beach in Spain. It is an incredible waste for something so trivial. people know it’s fucked up but they are also incredibly selfish and when confronted with this they get angry.

  28. If the goal was actually addressing climate change they’d propose something actually meaningful like a tax on kerosene rather than singling out their enemies (the wealthy).

    Aviation is 3.5% of emissions. Private jets are then a tiny fraction of that. This is literally targeting the cause of 0.2% of emissions because they are rich. That’s spite.

    Practically though, tax would need to be done on an EU level or transnational level.

  30. PBP being more green than the Greens. Private jets are shite and this country has too much of a problem with being late to the party on most issues, it might not solve the issue but at least we can get ahead of the curve. Not sure why people are falling over each other to defend the billionaires happy to tell us to cut down on car use when they fly everywhere. It’s not going to pass but God forbid a party even suggests it..

  31. [https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0330/1367161-private-jets/](https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0330/1367161-private-jets/)

    Some quotes:

    ​

    >Oisín Coghan, Director of Friends of the Earth, has said the report shows that in the last year, private jet flights leaving Irish airports more than doubled.
    >
    >Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime, he said: “They went up to almost 7,000 flights in the year and each of those flights was ten tonnes of emissions, which may in itself not mean anything until you realise that’s about what the average Irish person does in a year.
    >
    >”So, **this flight that might last an hour is the same as what the rest of us do in a year or the same as 40,000km driving your petrol car**, so that’s probably about what a car does in three years.”

    ​

    ​

    >Greenpeace is calling for a ban on private jets, saying 39% of the 570,000 flights made across Europe last year were considered “very short haul”, less than 500km, and therefore easily navigable by train.
    >
    >Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Private jets are staggeringly polluting and generally pointless.
    >
    >**”Many of these journeys can be covered almost as quickly by train, and some of them by bicycle.**
    >
    >”Millions of people around the world are facing climate chaos, losing livelihoods or worse, while a tiny minority are burning jet fuel like there’s no tomorrow.”

    ​

    >Max Thrower, of the Aviation Environment Federation, a group that campaigns on aviation’s environmental impacts, said: “Flying by private jet is the most carbon-intensive way to travel and it’s unacceptable that people continue to do it unnecessarily in the midst of a climate emergency.
    >
    >”The fact it continues suggests that **the super-rich are laughing in the faces of normal people**, who are becoming increasingly concerned about their carbon footprint from flying.”

  32. It’s in response to [the amount of CO2 emmitted by private jets in Europe](https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0330/1367161-private-jets/)

    > The number of private jet flights across Europe from 2020 to 2022 caused the same amount of CO2 as the entire annual emissions of Leeds city, according to new research.

    > In those three years combined there were 1,041,640 flights causing 5,377,851 tonnes of CO2 – equal to the emissions of the UK city.

    > As with all international traffic, private flights dropped in 2020, but a year later, when travel restrictions were still in place for many commercial passengers, they shot back and exceeded 2019 levels, the analysis showed.

    There’s some pretty damning information about short hop flights in that article.

  33. I think it’s a good idea, lead by example and hopefully the rest of Europe will follow. I’ve never flown in a private jet, never will, and no one I know ever has. Ban them for fuck sake

  34. Lol at the comments here. If stuff like this is too radical for ye lads, wait till ye hear what we have to do to stay under 2 degrees Celsius warming.

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