Mr. Donal Moriarty:

With respect to the first question from Deputy Lowry that related to the business community and the impact a lack of connectivity is having on it, increasingly, we are hearing voices from the business community expressing concern about the lack of connectivity. I have heard it expressed best by some executives with significant investments in Ireland who expressed a wish to walk the land and review their investment in Ireland but that is not something they can do. That not only impacts on the existing foreign direct investment in Ireland but also future investments that may or may not be made. It is quite clear that Ireland is putting itself at a significant disadvantage by the policies it has adopted in preventing business traffic.

With respect to state aid and the appearance by Mr. Cornelis at the committee yesterday, I confirm that the aviation recovery task force made a number of recommendations but none of them has been implemented. First, two of the recommendations related to the application of waivers or rebates with respect to airport and air navigation charges. Second, the task force spoke about a stimulus package with respect to regional airports. It is not clear to me whether they would constitute state aid or not but the State should consider implementing the recommendations, and if that requires an application to be lodged with the European Commission, then it should make it. To be clear, Aer Lingus has not made any application to the State for state aid, on a direct basis.

With respect to the refund issue, Aer Lingus has received in excess of 2 million refund or voucher requests since the start of the crisis and that is driven by the unprecedented level of flight cancellations. To date, we have processed 1.8 million refunds and vouchers, which is more than 90% of the requests we have received. Of the remaining 10%, we are working through them. Some of them are very challenging in terms of the complexity of the bookings. We are working through them and are committed to getting those refunds to our customers.

With respect to rapid testing, and I am not sure whether the Acting Chairman heard my remarks earlier, Aer Lingus believes that a rapid, affordable testing solution, based on antigen testing, is critical in order to meaningfully increase the level of international travel, and safely doing so. It is our view that that testing needs to be at a screening standard, not at a diagnostic standard. The reason for that is that there are many other risk mitigations that make travel safe.

With respect to the comments on Christmas, I would agree that a lack of co-ordination and lack of a consistent and clear voice as to what the policy is has bedevilled aviation since March. I am aware of the comments that have been referred to but the lack of consistency has been a feature of the crisis since the start.