Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are holding hearings. I was reflecting on it and when it comes down to it in looking at aviation policy and rebalancing the passenger numbers, the conduit maybe the regional airports programme. Deputy Carey made reference to the 3 million passengers. At the moment, Cork Airport would not qualify. We need to think outside the box. Dublin is growing too fast. As Deputy Carey said, we visited Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. That airport has 71 million passengers and the Netherlands has a population of 17 million. Dublin Airport has 31 million passengers and we have a population of 5.5 million, which is one third of that of the Netherlands. We hear about Schiphol Airport being under enormous pressure. It puts it in context that we have a disproportionate amount of traffic going through Dublin Airport. We have one airport on the eastern seaboard and we have four on the western seaboard, Shannon, Cork, Knock and Kerry, only making up between 10% and 13% with the rest going through Dublin. It needs to be something that encourages the airlines to take it up. I think it is more carrot than stick.

We have done a serious body of work on this, and we will continue with that work. We welcome the review of the programme and the national aviation policy. That key element of the programme may actually be a review of the regional airports part of the policy. I ask the Minister of State to give us a commitment today that she will extend the deadline to 31 January. Can we take that as a commitment?