Mr. Pat Dawson:

-----because I would have told the truth. If they are ever before the committee again, Mr. Hackett and I will be delighted to attend. Worse than that happened throughout the summer. When people could not travel because it was non-essential and they wanted to change their arrangements because the flights were going to go, and I am speaking of ordinary families around Ireland going on a precious holiday in school time who paid a great deal of money for the holiday, many airlines - not all, because some are very good - charged families €800 to €900 to change the date. They really took advantage.

This committee and the Government need to stand up and protect the public from that. It was incredible that families, as Deputy Lowry said, were crying on the phone and being told they had to cancel their holidays because they did not have €800 or €900 for these so-called amendment fees. A lot of profiteering went on when people were at their lowest and were worried about their health and jobs. These people did not want to fork out several hundred euros to change their holiday plans because of this profiteering. There is a lot of work to be done on this.