The Irish Government Ministers causing the most pollution through St Patrick's Day flights has been revealed, with one Minister's trip producing more C02 than the average Irish house in a year.
The carbon emissions of the Government's flights this weekend has been compiled by green energy specialists Wizer Energy, who have detailed which TDs are causing the most damage to the environment.
It revealed that party leaders Micheal Martin, Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan are producing a combined 17 tonnes of CO2e on their business class travels.
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The average daily emissions of a household in Ireland per year is 11 tonnes of C02e, a measure used to count the combination of various harmful greenhouse gases. An Irish car produces 3 tonnes of C02e in a calendar year.
The study revealed that Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine for Ireland Charlie McConalogue's business class trip to New Zealand trumped the list as the worst polluter, producing 14.84 tonnes of C02e.
Simon Coveney (13.1 tonnes), Rossa Fanning (9.64 tonnes), Patrick O' Donovan (8.95 tonnes) and Niall Collins (8.93 tonnes) respectively, all ranked along with Charlie McConalogue as the top five worst polluters of C02e over St Patrick's Day weekend.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan ranks as the 6th worst polluter, with his travels to Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai totalling 8.4 tonnes of C02e in total.
If all Ministers take business class flights, they will have average emissions of 5.57 tonnes, 3.44 more tonnes than if they took economy seats.
The average emissions of the Green Party is 4.5 tonnes due to business class and 1.27 tonnes due to economy flights.
Fine Gael is 4.42 tonnes due to business and 1.51 tonnes due to economy, while Fianna Fáil's is 5.89 tonnes due to business and 2.03 tonnes due to economy.
The argument is that TDs must take business class flights due to the sensitivity of the government material that they work on during their respective trips. This equates to 123.84 extra tonnes of C02e pollutants due to travelling on this class.
The five lowest polluters were Heather Humphreys, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Ossian Smyth, Paschal Donohoe and Kieran O' Donnell, respectively.
However, these flights were all to the UK or close in Europe, producing lesser emissions than the trips to Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the US being undertaken by the top six worst polluters.
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