In a protest outside the Dáil, campaigners used this symbolic act to express outrage at the Transport Minister’s Bill that would massively increase fossil fuel pollution, threatening children’s futures and public health
18th March 2026, Leinster House, Kildare St, D2, 1pm, Campaigners including Children’s Rights over Flights (CROF) and Irish Doctors for the Environment (IDE) led a protest in opposition to the expansion of aviation – specifically the lifting of the Dublin airport passenger cap, at a time of worsening climate crisis. A Bill to allow the Transport Minister to remove the cap is currently going through pre-legislative scrutiny. The protestors held banners, chanted “More dirty air, that’s not fair” and gave speeches. Two participants tore up a copy of the Bill to symbolise their vehement opposition to it, due to the increased fossil fuel pollution and climate harms it would entail – negatively impacting children’s futures and public health, both globally and in Ireland.
Since 1990 Ireland’s population has grown by 44 per cent, but emissions from aviation increased by 500 per cent.
Louise O’Leary, of CROF, a mother and health professional from Dublin stated, “Aviation fossil fuel pollution is not magical. It contributes to worsening climate change and appalling harms facing our kids and grandkids, like all fossil fuel pollution. The State’s duty, and the Minister’s duty, is to protect children from these harms and prioritise rapid and effective emissions cuts, not to prioritise undemocratic and reckless demands of highly polluting Irish and North American airlines. We’re calling on the Government to fulfil its obligations to children and refrain from such a backwards and harmful plan, and withdraw this Bill.”
Orlagh Gaynor, a physiotherapist living in Drogheda who volunteers with IDE said “Ireland has legally binding targets in emission reductions that we are obligated to achieve. These targets exist to protect human health. As healthcare professionals, it is our duty to follow the science and advocate for public health. The science has made it very clear that there is a great cost to life associated with carbon emissions and climate change. One preventable death is too many. Lifting the passenger cap will cause unprecedented harm to health, both here in Ireland and around the world.”.
The Bill would centralise power with the Minister for Transport to remove the passenger cap outright and prevent a passenger cap from ever being employed again. It refers to ‘serious harm’ related to the economy, and to the ‘public interest’ as reasoning for abolishing the cap.
CROF submitted a Freedom of Information request for records, dating back to January 1st 2025, related to any efforts by the Dept of Transport or Minister for Transport to evaluate what the effects of removing the cap would be in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the ‘public interest’ in the context of climate change, or the economic implications of outgoing tourism from Ireland, but say they received a response indicating these records did not exist.
The group highlights the ‘travel deficit’ that exists which sees billions more euro leave the economy with Irish people flying abroad, than is brought in by visitors to the country. Most recently available Central Statistics Office (CSO) data indicate a travel deficit of €5.1 billion for 2023 alone, a figure which Opportunity Green highlights as equating to 1% of GDP. CSO data indicates visitor numbers to Ireland have remained largely static and that spending within the country may even be decreasing, despite record numbers of passenger traffic through Dublin Airport.
The Dublin Airport Authority’s (DAA) planning application to raise the cap from 32 to 40 million passengers annually (mpa) indicated that this increase alone could entail an increase in emissions of 750,000 metric tonnes by 2031 – representing an approximately 22% increase. However, this Bill would see the cap removed outright despite no “adequate, comprehensive or scientifically-based assessment of environmental and climate impacts” of the proposal, as emphasized by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment on her February visit to Ireland.
During the protest a participant read aloud a joint open letter by CROF and IDE which had been delivered earlier in the day to Minister O’Brien. It was signed by multiple other groups, including ActionAid, Oxfam, the Irish Cycling Campaign, and the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice and called for “an urgent halt to the Government’s intervention to remove the Dublin Airport passenger cap” and for “the development of an aviation policy that is aligned with Ireland’s climate and human rights obligations, and with best available science”. It expressed alarm at the Bill’s “attempts to legislate exemption from climate obligations” – a reference to language in the general scheme of the Bill stating “Any function or exercise undertaken under this Act shall be exempt from the provisions of section 15 of the [Climate] Act of 2015.”
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Children's Rights Over Flights 
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