Mr. Evan Cullen:

Ryanair has just emerged with its results. It was in a closed period until a couple of weeks ago. Aer Lingus is part of IAG and is in a closed period. It will announce its results at the end of February or in early March. During these periods, the airlines cannot talk to anybody about their financial state. Other airlines have indicated to us that they asked for assistance from the Government. If we are to believe those executives, they said none was forthcoming. We understand however that there has been some discussion with the Government. That is all confidential, based on market sensitive rules on share prices and so on.

There are aviation economists in IALPA whom we use for various negotiations. The airlines need assistance in the form of direct State aid. They cannot take on any more loans on their balance sheets. It is important to note that when we last spoke, there was a reference in the committee's report to green shoots for 2021. It came as an enormous surprise to us in January when the Government effectively closed international travel for the summer of 2021. Every assumption we built into our plans was that we would get to a space of at least 70% of the 2019 production in 2021.

That has now been scuppered. We will be lucky if in 2021 we get to 10% of the 2019 level of production. Therein lies the problem. We will also go into 2021 without the cash we had in 2020. A lot of bookings were made in early 2020 for the summer of 2020. That booking cash is no longer available and we are going into a zero revenue 2021. Problem after problem is being heaped on us. All the assumptions for getting out of this crisis have now proved to be false. It looks like there will be a recovery in quarter 1 or 2 of 2022, if there are any airlines to take on that recovery. That problem is massive and cannot be dealt with through loans from ISIF. It has to be dealt with through direct financial State aid. That is now the only way out of this.