Bert Force One trip guilt free of carbon footprint

BERTIE AHERN’S five-day scramble through Africa was the first Taoiseach’s visit to the continent not to leave a carbon footprint across the planet’s environment.

The 27,000 litres of jet fuel used on his visit to South Africa and Tanzania in a rented DC-9 — dubbed Bert Force One — were “offset” by Shannon-based Le Bas International Air Charter.

Despite the trade and aid mission producing 154,000lbs of CO2 green house gas emissions, Mr Ahern was able to keep a greener than green conscience by having the damage done traded for investment in partnership with windfarms and biomass energy.

Le Bas is owned by California-based Dubliner Peter Le Bas, who began his climb to multimillionaire status by setting up a limousine hire business to ferry wannabe starlets around Hollywood when he moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s.

The government jet was considered too unreliable to transport the Taoiseach through Africa and so a private company was hired to get him between southern and eastern Africa.

Mr Ahern used the DC-9 to fly between Johannesburg and Dar-es-Salaam and then into the interior of Tanzania where he saw how Irish Aid money was helping fund anti-domestic violence campaigns and support subsistence farmers.

Ireland is now the sixth most generous foreign donor in the world, per head of population, and sent €914 million abroad last year.

That figure will rise to €1.2 billion by 2012 when Ireland achieves its commitment to the UN goal of allocating 0.7% of national wealth to overseas aid.

Mr Ahern used the trip to see how Irish money was flowing into grassroots health, housing and educational projects.

Ireland is to pump €170m into Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world, over the next three years.

Irish Aid is being channelled into a variety of key projects, like water purification, help for the disabled and care for expectant mothers.

Mr Ahern expressed his satisfaction with the way the Tanzanian government is handling the aid and his confidence in the country’s transition to democracy.

Mr Le Bas’s brother Ronald Le Bas is the Assay Master at Dublin Castle — the person who checks and stamps as authentic all Irish gold bars. Their father Captain Ronald Le Bas held the post before him and the family business dates back to the 1500s.

The company bought back the carbon footprint created by Mr Ahern’s trip through a company called Terrapass. Terrapass is a consumer retailer and marketer of greenhouse gas (CGH) reduction programmes.

All Terrapass greenhouse gas reductions are certified by an independent auditor, the non-profit Center for Resources Solutions in the US.