Ms Gina Quin:

I thank the Chair, Deputies and Senators for having us here. Dublin Chamber of Commerce represents about 1,300 companies in the greater Dublin region - companies of all sizes across all sectors and employing about 350,000 people in the region. Our business is about promoting the Dublin economy as a key driver of the economy of Ireland.

Our concern over the issue relates to connectivity which has been mentioned by many of this afternoon's speakers. We know that international air connectivity enhances a national economy. It is crucial for that criterion to be at the forefront of the assessment of any proposal on the Aer Lingus company. The Oxford economic group, which looked specifically at the impact of connectivity, estimated that a 10% improvement in air connectivity for a country can have a 1% increase in GDP in the long term. So there is a very significant connection between connectivity and GDP growth.

The market forecast of aircraft manufacturer, Airbus, that looks at the global aviation market to 2030 estimates that the global market will be dominated by 87 aviation mega cities - hubs around the globe through which traffic will transfer. It includes Ireland's Dublin Airport as one of those 87 aviation hubs.

The key in connectivity is often long-haul traffic, which has also been mentioned this afternoon. The figures for Dublin and for Ireland have been very encouraging in this regard. Since 2010 we have seen a 40% increase in the number of passengers travelling between North America and Ireland through Dublin Airport.

I have had personal experience of the campaign over the past four years to re-establish the route between Dublin and the west coast of America, resulting in the re-opening last April of the route into San Francisco. We worked very hard with companies throughout the island and in the Dublin region to ensure that route was reinstated. Since it was reinstated last April more than 1,500 jobs have been announced for Ireland by companies from the US west coast. Some of those involve the expansion of existing companies, such as PayPal, and some of them are new companies such as Calypso Technology, AdRoll and AMAX. So it is very significant that this route has been re-established. I am encouraged that Aer Lingus has announced it is expanding that route from five flights a week to seven from the summer.

A key driver for long-haul routes is transfer traffic. That is the concept that passengers will travel through Europe into Ireland and on to the United States of America. We believe this has been a real success for Ireland for Dublin in recent years. It has already been mentioned this afternoon that more than 1 million passengers pass through Dublin en route. The pre-clearance facilities in Dublin are a very significant part of that.

I am encouraged by the statement in the document issued by IAG yesterday that it plans to use its aviation network to grow transfer traffic at Irish airports. This should be good news for Irish business travellers and consumers.

We have very ambitious targets for the economy in the years ahead as we face economic recovery. We must create more jobs and do everything possible to support economic growth, and international connectivity is key to achieving this objective. We also have an ambition to increase tourist numbers by 25% in the next ten years. Tourism is extremely important for all parts of the island and achieving growth in the sector will only be possible if connectivity is improved. This will be the key criterion for assessing the proposed sale of Aer Lingus.