Mr. Willie Walsh:

I will start with the final question first. I have been impressed by Dublin Airport. The management at daa is way superior to anything I experienced during my time at Aer Lingus. They recognise the value of a hub operation and are facilitating the development of a hub in a way that Aer Rianta did not. When Aer Rianta restructured the terminal buildings, it stopped people from being able to transfer air side and anybody who wanted to transfer from one flight to another had to come land side and then go back through security. The current management recognises that there is a huge opportunity for Dublin Airport to develop as a respected and credible transatlantic hub and I admire them for that.

I believe we can work with the management team at daa. Dublin Airport is not a perfect airport, I do not know one that is. There are always opportunities to improve the efficiency but I would not be critical of Dublin Airport. We operate to over 250 airports globally and Dublin Airport is one of the better airports. I see that as a positive.

As to other shareholders, we have not had any engagement with Ryanair. All I can tell the committee is what has already been said publicly and previously. There have been some statements from Ryanair where it said it hoped the Irish Government would be pragmatic about this issue. I think Ryanair previously said it would not sell if the Irish Government was not selling and the Government said it it would not sell if Ryanair was not selling, so there is a bit of a stand-off. I do not know what Ryanair's position is but I expect the board of Ryanair would, at the appropriate time, give very careful consideration to what we propose.

Reference was made to Shannon and Cork. I can appreciate there is some concern being expressed but I think it is misplaced. I am a business person. I believe the fundamental benefit one gets is from operating those in a profitable way. I believe they are profitable today and will continue to be profitable and continue to provide valuable feed. The Deputy asked if I would give a guarantee specific to Shannon and Cork rather than just the general commitment we have given in relation to Ireland. My advisor might not allow me to say this but that is something that I would be prepared to do. I see no reason why we would not operate services from Shannon and Cork to Heathrow, maintaining the four daily services from Cork and the three daily services from Shannon. I have not heard anyone express concern about Dublin. Dublin-London is the busiest international route in the world so of course we are going to be there. I can understand the concern but I genuinely think the concern is misplaced.