Mr. Kevin Toland:

I thank the Senators for their questions and, in particular, Senator Gerald Nash for his kind remarks on our development. I will respond to Senator Michelle Mulherin's question with Senator Nash's one on the open skies and liberalisation. The Senators have really got to the nub of it. It will not wait for Brexit. It will happen six to 12 months before it. If nothing is agreed, airlines will essentially be selling a service they cannot deliver because they will not know if those treaties and the single sky system will be in place. There will be massive uncertainty. I share the concerns that have been articulated by Mr. O'Leary who is one of our key customers. If people move out of the UK, there will be fewer routes and that is where it will all start happening. In an airport, when we build something we have it and have to use it. If an airline has a aeroplane, it can fly it from anywhere to anywhere. We will start seeing a reduction in routes. That will be the first impact. It will start happening early next year. The second impact we will see will be for the routes that stay. It is a very technical matter. An EU airline can go from anywhere in the EU to anywhere else. They will have to start going back to old treaties and nominating airlines per country. There used to be only one nominated by each country. The cost of air transport has come down dramatically while the amount of air transport and connectivity is going up. We will see fewer routes and higher prices kicking in six months before Brexit. It will be very negative. Not all connectivity to the UK would disappear because it is a result of a combination of business, people going on holiday and people going both ways visiting family and relations. We would definitely see a step back, particularly in the regional airports which are a lot more dependent on UK provincial business which is very good business. An awful lot of trade is supported, even though the goods may go by road. Much of the trade and business is done by people going over and back and doing their selling in the UK.

Senator Gerald Nash asked about how it is likely to develop. We think this has been missed by the UK. It is a fairly common view as they get into the detail of a hard Brexit and the negotiations that one of the devils in the detail is aviation. As they get into that detail, they will realise that 50% of their travel is in and out of the EU; therefore, it will be badly impacted after Brexit unless they can get another deal. For us, we are right out there with them. There is a chart in the presentation materials I sent round which shows that. For France and Germany aviation is a big deal but is not the end of the world because 6% or 7% of traffic is into the UK. Who knows how they will look at that. They will weigh up selling Audi cars, BMWs, aeroplanes and other things; therefore, it will not be as important. It will be very dangerous. I do not think anyone has an idea how it will develop.

With regard to Senator Michelle Mulherin's question, aviation is in a very dangerous place because we do not have to wait for Brexit to see what happens. We will probably find out what happens next spring when some of the airlines will decide they will not do things. On top of that there will be a secondary impact for the airlines. If we take an airline such as Ryanair as an example, to operate within the Single European Sky a certain proportion of ownership has to be in the EU. After Brexit, the shares that are held by people in the UK in Ryanair could potentially disqualify it altogether from being an EU airline. There will be another area of complexity to manage. It is a very fast moving business. It operates on trying to be as simple and quick as it can. This will slow it down. It is not a state secret. Ryanair said last week that airports all over Europe are clamouring for planes. It will start basing planes elsewhere where it will have more certainty, where it can sell the flights and where it knows the business will be done.

I will address Senator Paul Daly's question. We have good air cargo facilities in Dublin and we have good facilities in Cork. We would be very open to looking at how we develop and support them. We need to bring on our new runway as quickly as possible because we are at 87% capacity between five in the morning and midnight. We need a longer runway so we are able to get to places like China, South America and further into Africa and Asia to develop new markets for the Irish economy, including trade going out, foreign direct investment and tourism coming in. We need to deal with and remove the too onerous conditions in the current planning permission which curtail our ability to operate the runway for air traffic for passengers and cargo and which also potentially curtail the development of the Irish economy. It is a significant issue but one we will happily work our way through in both Dublin and Cork.