Ms Gina Quin:

I would make the point that Ireland has a very strong heritage of airline traffic between both Shannon and Dublin and North America. It is that history and practice that will stand to us in the future.

I wish to address some of the points made by Deputy Ellis. Earlier we heard from the unions at Aer Lingus that the company has grown significantly since privatisation, both in terms of profit and jobs but there is no guarantee that this will continue. There is no guarantee of anything in the future. Aer Lingus is at the mercy of the markets, as a private entity. The question we must ask is this - if Aer Lingus becomes part of a large body, can it have more might to fight the markets? We all know that the airline business is extremely cyclical. It tends to have very big ups and downs in terms of profitability. We happen to be in the ascendancy at the moment but there is no guarantee that this will continue.