Ms Rose Hynes:

In response to Senator Mooney, as I said earlier, I am here to talk about Shannon Airport and he reflected that in his comments. Ryanair was in Shannon Airport when we had high passenger numbers. It is still an important customer of Shannon Airport and we have a number of Ryanair flights. We have a very good relationship with Ryanair and we are in discussion with it as well as with a number of other airlines. We will be seeking to increase passenger numbers in Shannon Airport, both inbound and outbound.

The Senator mentioned the German market, in particular. Without giving the game away, I can confirm to him that we are already in discussion with the German market in regard to inbound flights. Passengers coming into Shannon Airport will go up and down the west coast. They are more likely to stay on the west coast than if they came into Dublin Airport.

We do not intend unsustainable growth with Ryanair. That was an issue in the past. We will not go there again. We have to learn from the problems of the past. We certainly see passengers travelling up to and down from Dublin. We will certainly target those passengers.