Mr. Kevin Thompstone:

I thank everyone for their support for the proposal, which is very much appreciated. In response to Deputy Wynne's questions, I would always be a glass half-full person. One of the things I can say about aviation over the years having worked in economic development and in aviation, particularly in Shannon and around the area over many years, is that it is a cyclical business and there will be ups and downs. Aviation is clearly in a down phase at present. The airline industry and the wider aviation sector are impacted, which is why we are talking about Lufthansa Technik doing a review of its operations. I have been around and have seen a lot of those in the past. Many of the businesses that are there today have been through multiple ownerships but the one success we always have in Shannon is reinventing to deal with whatever issues are thrown at us from the marketplace.

I would be very confident about Shannon's future from that point of view.

As I mentioned earlier, the Aer Lingus decision on the cabin crew base in Shannon is regrettable, particularly from the point of view of the people working there who are directly affected and their families. At the same time, though, I would be confident that we will see Aer Lingus flying into Shannon again. The question is when. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later. I would be confident because, as Ms Fitzgerald Kane mentioned earlier, right up and down the Wild Atlantic Way, we have a superb tourism project. We know there is pent-up demand around the world for that. With Tourism Ireland getting the marketing funding we are proposing on the back of previous task force recommendations, we believe the message will go out to the world that Ireland is open for business.

If we can back that up with the route incentive scheme we are proposing today, there will be a market for the future. The same also applies to foreign direct investment. We have blue-chip companies, most of them run by Irish people, regardless of where the ownership is, up and down the Atlantic economic corridor, whether it is in Castlebar, Galway, Ennis, Shannon, Limerick or Cork. We have a strong base there and we have good, practical Irish and non-Irish people working in those businesses. They will push, as they have always done, to make sure those businesses succeed.

That brings us all the way back to the reason we are here today, which is that governments intervene when there is market failure. We clearly have market failure now. Our recommendation is to intervene for a defined period during the recovery to enable that critical mass we have, be it in tourism, hospitality, leisure, manufacturing or the international service industry to realise its potential, as we have shown in the past. If the Government does that, it will get the payback as our numbers have shown.