John O'Mahony (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman.

Commissioner Bulc is very welcome to Ireland. I represented this committee in Tallinn recently, where Ms Bulc addressed the meetings of all of the transport committees throughout Europe. That meeting was very informative on the progress that is being made. Today, with Brexit in the offering, we are talking more about problems than solutions, but it is important to acknowledge the many good things that are happening in the transport sector in connecting Europe.

That said, the solution everybody wants is a soft Brexit. All of the different stakeholders want it but it seems it will be very difficult to achieve. We must plan for the situations the witness outlined. Some of the policies of the European Union at present - I mentioned this issue in Tallinn also - are based on Britain being part of the Union. One example is the TEN-T policy. Part of that policy, which was finalised in 2014, was that it could not be examined again until 2020. Obviously, if there is a soft Brexit everything will be okay but if there is not we will have a difficulty in that regard. That is the first issue.

The second issue is connectivity with Ireland and the European Union. Mainland Europe is hugely important but we have issues with connecting Ireland. We have the Ireland 2040 plan. When the collapse occurred a number of years ago much of the work on road infrastructure stopped. Most of those projects were about connecting Ireland. I am from the western part of Ireland and that infrastructure is vital. I hope matter that will be addressed in the capital spending plan for the future that will be announced shortly. We talk sometimes about the disconnection between the member states and the European Union. One of the issues is state aid rules. There is a reference in the briefing documents to regional airports. There is a vital regional airport in western Ireland. The number of passengers is 1.1 million and 750,000 of them relate to Ireland West Airport Knock. It is very difficult, and this is part of the disconnection, that when the Government might wish to help it cannot do so because of state aid rules. We should continue to connect Europe but it is also important that we facilitate connections within our country that require support also.