Ms Mary Mulholland:

I agree totally with Mr. Clarke's point. I would bring it to an even more basic level.

I would say to Senator Dooley that anybody who has ever travelled to Dublin for the early morning Malaga flight and who has gone to Shannon for an early morning flight will know it is like chalk and cheese. Just before Covid struck us all, in 2019 Dublin Airport was bursting at the seams. It was at capacity and unable to put on any more routes or fly any more aircraft in or out of the airport. It was over capacity with security, immigration and everything else. Our Customs and border protection, CBP, in Shannon was perfectly right-sized for the number of people going through that airport. It was a very easy day to go wherever you needed to be, whether you were a business traveller or somebody going on holidays. I predominantly worked on a Boston flight and the number of businessmen I would have had in my cabin who did not know that Shannon Airport was so close to Galway, Limerick or Kerry would be hard to believe. If they were going golfing in Adare or if they were going to Old Head, they did not know how close Shannon was to these other places and their travel agent booked them by accident into Shannon because the first thing that came up on all the search engines was Dublin. Dublin is not the be all and the end all, and I am not anti-Dublin. There is enough work for everybody. There is enough airspace for everybody. There is enough if the will is there to distribute between the three airports and link the three.

I do not care how the Senator links all of this. I really do not care what language one is using to link it or how we get a foot in the door but time is of the essence. Link it any way the Senators likes. I am behind the Senator every step of the way.