Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat. I welcome the witnesses to the committee. I was closely monitoring proceedings from my office for social distancing purposes, but I am glad to be here now in the room. First, I thank all the witnesses for the contribution that they make to Irish tourism. From my time in the Department I became very familiar with the work that all the witnesses do in their respective airports.

The importance of the airports to their regions cannot be overstated. I thank the witnesses for the jobs that they provide directly and for the thousands of jobs that they facilitate through providing those vital access points to their regions.

I concur with previous speakers in welcoming the funding announced yesterday. It is vital that the funding goes to the front line as quickly as possible. I hope, like any of the other Government schemes that have been announced since the start of Covid, that it will be user-friendly, accessible and gets to the people who need it as quickly as possible. I hope that it will sustain us through this period until we get to a point where we can return to some form of normality. At the start of 2020, it was promising to be a good year, but, unfortunately, we all know what happened. The challenge is to get back to that position.

It will be crucial for regional airports when the clock starts again to have co-operative marketing funding to give airports the opportunity to provide sustainable routes. The larger airports are the safer option, as was said. We often hear criticism of Government that all the routes are going in and out of Dublin. The Government and airports can only do so much. If airlines demand to go to one specific airport, there is little that others can do. The regional co-operative marketing fund that was in place was helpful. The combined work of Tourism Ireland, the airports and the airlines provided great progress. We all need to work harder on that to ensure that there is extra funding to help airports when things get back to normal.

I welcome Mr. John Mulhern and Mr. Basil Sheerin from Kerry Airport and thank them for the work that they do, not just for County Kerry but for the south-west region. Kerry Airport is one of the outstanding Kerry stories, up there with Kerry football and such. It is a great story with many chapters left. This is unfortunately a dark chapter but we will come through it. I thank the witnesses for the work they are doing. I know there were exciting things planned for 2020. The new Manchester route was going to be a really exciting northern UK route but unfortunately that did not happen. I think I speak for all the Oireachtas Members from the county when I say the witnesses have our full support and their work is important to everyone in Kerry. We will all continue to work with the witnesses on the behalf of the people of Kerry.

Regarding the Kerry-Dublin public service obligation, what do the witnesses see as being a realistic timeline for when we can get back to decent occupancy on that route? Looking at connecting the regions, do they feel it would be a viable proposition and have they done research to support the proposition?