Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his points. He is correct that we want a compensation programme that encourages airlines to continue to do their best to get people to destinations on time. The original proposal from the Commission on a threshold of five hours and above strikes the right balance and we support it. We share a common analysis on the railway package. We do not have the interoperability concerns of markets that are located on the Continent of Europe. Given our market size and structure, some elements of the proposal would not be positive or allow the development of our rail market in the way we hope and for which we are planning. The answer to the Deputy’s question on the Shannon Estuary is, as he suspected, “No”.