Mr. Kevin Toland:

As I neglected to answer the Acting Chairman's question, I apologise. We built Dublin Airport and it is now a very successful airport. We are now 14th in connectivity across Europe and 12th in terms of size. A key feature of that has been building long haul, particularly the gateway to North America. This summer, we will be the fifth most important gateway to North America, which we are very proud of. We think there are great opportunities to keep building that. We will grow by over 20% this year. In the Middle East, we will grow by about 14% or 15% this summer. We are working very actively and hard to advance further connectivity, especially to China where we would be very hopeful of that coming through. One key linchpin of it all is people transferring through Dublin to UK provincial towns and cities. I remember how back in my food days at the time of the foot and mouth scare, I realised that food was not that important at the time in the UK but was very important here. Our reaction and our success in managing that was directly down to the Government understanding it, bringing the industry together and dealing with it. There is a similar issue in aviation. Frankly, I do not think it matters as much in the UK. One can see this if one looks at the way the UK has allowed its air capacity to be gridlocked for 40 years and has just now taken the decision on Heathrow. This summer, a person can fly to 24 or 25 UK airports from Dublin, while they can only fly to seven or eight from Heathrow or Gatwick; therefore, the UK has allowed itself to become unconnected. In developing business with China, believe it or not the UK had a quota on the number of flights from China. It has woken up following the Brexit vote. This is a cautionary note I would add. The UK has quadrupled the number of flights that can come in from China. I still do not know why it would have a ban on it. It is still a big opportunity for us but we will face many threats. The UK is more active and there are more flights from China. The UK is spending more money on regional tourism and has taken the decision to move on with Heathrow after 40 or 50 years of gridlock.

The other question I did not comment on directly concerned what we are doing about it. We have not had direct contact with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. We have worked with his officials. The Minister has set up a national civil aviation development forum that provides some of the interfaces. We are extremely active. I have met at the highest level in Europe with the permanent and elected officials who handle both transport and aviation. In fact, I had the privilege of briefing the gentleman responsible for aviation, Filip Cornelis, two weeks ago in Cork where we welcomed a number of aviation people to a forum. Commissioner Hogan and his office have been very supportive. We have also worked through IBEC and the Airports Council International. The really important thing is, as Mr. Flynn suggested, a joined-up message, knocking on all the doors and making sure it is well understood. Even if people are waking up late, our perspective is that we cannot be active enough.