Mr. Dalton Philips:

We will lose well over €200 million this year. We are rapidly depleting our cash reserves. If we do not open this country up we are going to be in a very severe state. On a wider level, when Shannon or Cork loses a route, it will not come back next year when things get better because that asset is redeployed somewhere else in that airline's network or sold and bought by another airline but is used somewhere else. It can take between four and six years to develop a route for Shannon, Cork and Dublin.

Yesterday, 19 people flew in on a flight from Dallas-Fort Worth on an American Airlines aircraft that probably cost €150,000 just to fly the route that day. That airline is ceasing operations and we will not get them back into this country in a hurry, which is a hammer blow for this country's links to the southern states of the US.