James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is a pleasure to have Mr. Walsh before the committee. He is one of the country's most eminent experts in aviation from his role as CEO of IAG, Aer Lingus and British Airways. I am very interested in having a dialogue with him today on some of the issues at hand.

Regarding the 138 cabin crew and 60 ground staff affected by the Aer Lingus decision in Cork, it is deeply regrettable that this has happened. My personal view is that this was avoidable. I am delighted to hear Mr. Walsh refer to the attitude to flying that has developed in the Republic of Ireland. I find it incredibly hard to digest the damage this is doing to our economy, to inward investment in the country and to the outbound tourism aspect, which was very important to many of the tour operators, which this committee has regularly hosted. Many of them are now going bust, which is shocking. I think more than 140,000 people work in aviation.

I wish to put a couple of select questions to Mr. Walsh as somebody who has been working very hard behind the scenes to try to advance the reopening of aviation in Ireland. The first question concerns the digital green certificate, DGC. According to Mr. Walsh's read of the DGC, how does he think it will work in a situation in which a family of five are flying from somewhere like Cork Airport to, for example, Paris if they are taking a trip to Disneyland?

What will happen if the two parents are vaccinated but the children are not? How will it work out when the digital green certificate is implemented by the European Union?