Mr. Paul Hackett:

I will start with the Deputy’s last point first. Screen scraping means that we are using data from the airlines' website to offer flights. It is a feed, like a dotcom website, and it is a public website. For us to sell holidays using Ryanair or Aer Lingus flights, we either have feeds which are official or they are screen scraping, which is effectively taking the data. Ryanair has a particular issue with that which is to do with its own distribution policies and the terms and conditions of its website. It is entitled to set those and there is no question about that. Screen scraping in itself is not inherently damaging to the consumer. Effectively, what we are trying to do is to provide the consumer with the holiday and flights that he or she wants to book. Ryanair is very happy to accept the money. From a contract law point of view, the names are presented, the prices are quoted and the transaction is completed, so there is offer, acceptance and consideration. That part is dealt with.

On the airlines and the refund piece, it is fair to say that the other airlines are doing their best but it is mainly around the scale of this problem, and that is where the challenge is. There is only one airline that is trying to sit within the EU 261 regulation, and it may have very justifiable reasons for sitting within that regulation - I am not a lawyer - but EU 261 is there for airline regulation, the aviation sector.