Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I oppose this section which again proposes to substitute "Dublin Airport Authority" with "DAA". Concern has been expressed in Shannon and Cork about the entity that has effectively controlled the three airports. I know the history of the establishment of the Dublin Airport Authority. The expectation at the time of its establishment in 2004 was that separation of Shannon and Cork Airports would have come about much sooner.

Given the fact that Cork Airport still remains part of the DAA, formerly Aer Rianta, I would have thought that pending the ability to make Cork Airport independent the Minister would have created some type of umbrella name that did not define it as the Dublin Airport Authority. It is known colloquially as the DAA, but people in Cork rightly feel that this adds to the notion that everything is about Dublin, driving Dublin and creating a really strong airport in Dublin, while Cork is at the end of the tail, as it were, in Irish aviation activity. While I do not wish to get involved in deciding a name, returning to the use of "Aer Rianta" as an interim step until such time as there are two independent entities might have been an appropriate way to proceed. I am opposing this section on that basis. I could have proposed an amendment to call it "DCA" or whatever.