Mr. Matt Staunton:

On the likely windfall from a sale, who remembers the windfall the previous Government received for the initial public offering? The figure was €200 million. Where has that money gone? What benefit can anyone point to? The answer is none. One would be likely to receive a figure north of €300 million this time, which would be a drop in an ocean of debt. It would not replace the significant element the company could deliver to the country.

Let us draw a ring around Belfast and its region and around Dublin and its region. People in Belfast would give their right arm for what we have in Dublin, namely, inward investment and the tourism yields announced yesterday by Mr. Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland. This is all because of two clever little words - "connectivity" and "certainty". If one removes certainty, one will start to go downhill. Let us remember what happened at Shannon not even ten years ago when Aer Lingus became an independent company. The route to Heathrow Airport was removed by the company.

Very quickly afterwards, during an existing inward investment, Dell began to wonder whether it still needed to be based in Limerick and whether it had other options. This was because the word "certainty" had been removed. Heathrow Airport slots are vital, as Deputy Seán Kenny mentioned, for this reason alone. We should weigh up the windfall against the likely loss. It is self-evident that it is a no-brainer.