Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is good to see Mr. Ó Céidigh at this meeting. I met him earlier in Buswells Hotel. It is great to see him in Dublin and the Houses of the Oireachtas, a place where he is very much at home. It is great to welcome him to his role as chairperson of the Shannon Group. He told the story of being approached by a worker who did not know his surname but knew Mr. Ó Céidigh was the new guy on the scene. The feeling of relief and hope he described permeates the mid-west. It is felt politically and among those who work in the airport and beyond. The airport is a catalyst for so much economic activity in the region. Our heart and soul is invested in Shannon. We support our local hurling and football clubs and the province in rugby. There is real support for the airport. My wife is from Cork and like many families, we browse the air fares that are available. I am always loyal to Shannon and would rather pay the extra buck to fly out of the airport. That is not felt everywhere in the country but it is certainly felt in the mid-west. We need to tap into that and Mr. Ó Céidigh is the man to lead from the helm.

A week ago, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was before the committee and we discussed what Mr. Ó Céidigh's imminent appointment to this position would entail. I made the point that he will work with a very good chief executive, Mary Considine, and I believed they would work well together. I asked the Minister about the rest of the board and when their terms expire. He envisaged it would be a rotation, where some members would leave the board and new members would be appointed. I know Mr. Ó Céidigh does not have a say but I hope that, as the board is changed up a little, those who come to surround him on the board come from an aviation background. Business and economics are important but running agribusinesses or businesses in other important sectors of the economy are different from running and airport, seeing aeroplanes in our sky and stimulating a region. I hope Mr. Ó Céidigh and Ms Considine will be surrounded by the right people and they get us back on an upward trajectory.

About three weeks ago I had a meeting here in Dublin with the Saudi Arabian ambassador. The Saudis are very keen to establish direct air connectivity between Riyadh Airport and Ireland. I have set up a meeting for Ms Considine and the ambassador, in the hope of deepening links there. There are many aviation hubs in the Middle East but Riyadh airport offers excellent connectivity options for us eastwards into Asia and Australia. We offer westward connectivity options to them as a stepping stone to the US. That is an open door we are pushing. Of course, there is a huge amount of work to be done but there is an appetite on both sides here to do something and I hope Mr. Ó Céidigh will champion that in his tenure.

Moving to the matter of Shannon Heritage, it has felt quite rudderless at times. For many years it has been managed by the mothership Shannon Group. Shannon Heritage has good localised management but some of the big decisions that impacted on it have been taken outside that in the airport. Some of them have been communicated well, others not so well. Given that deficiency in the communications, many of the workers have come to us politicians and we go seeking answers for them. I made the point that while I will gladly do that time and time again it is not really the correct chain of command. I hope that communications line is something Mr. Ó Céidigh will try to rectify as helmsman of the Shannon Group. The transfer of responsibilities is legally intended to conclude on 31 December but now the belief is that could run out to March, for unavoidable reasons like due diligence and all the rigmarole involved there. This is one of the first things I hope Mr. Ó Céidigh can sit down with Ms Considine and have a proper look at. It has been said to Shannon Heritage workers at both the County Claire and County Limerick sites that for the interim period from 1 January until the middle of March, the sites will again close. That is utterly unthinkable. It is unstrategic. It is a head in the sand approach really at a time when all places are reopening. We are just days away from 22 October when society overall opens up. We must back those heritage sites, see them as being strategic tourism sites in the region and say that though this may have been a bumpy road, we are going to keep all the sites open. There is a photo doing the rounds on social media of a tour bus pulling into Bunratty Folk Park the other day and the park was not able to take them. Commercial bookings have been turned away. We are going to lose a lot of space here unless we do something right. Even though Mr. Ó Céidigh is going to be relinquishing responsibility for the Shannon Heritage portfolio he has a role for the next few months, probably up to March, and I ask that he take it on and pass the baton on to the local authorities with the heritage side in a very healthy state. I ask also that he would please engage with the workers.

A dialogue has come out in the last few weeks which has been very helpful to Shannon. It is being called "Shannon-shaming". It is very important that is knocked on the head by everyone who cares about Shannon Airport and the region. The genesis for US military flights landing in Shannon is UN Security Council Resolution 1441 which was passed unanimously. Just yesterday evening, a local Afghan family from County Clare arrived home, having been stuck in Kabul and facing all that they faced at the hands of the Taliban for the last number of weeks. At times, we must look at what is really happening with some of the people who are going out from Shannon on those military flights. It is not all waging war. Sometimes people are being brought back to safety and there are positives. We need to stop and knock on the head the Shannon-shaming. We have enough problems without adding to them.

Shannon is categorised as a category 9 airport. That has implications for which large-body aircraft, with respect to both width and length, can land on the runway. At times over the past year, Shannon has fallen below category 9 status and that has been down to reductions in those working in the fire service. It is important from here on, as we are getting beyond Covid, that Mr. Ó Céidigh, Ms Considine and all on the management side of the airport ensure it is always category 9 and can always receive aircraft coming in over the Atlantic.

I will conclude with a few other small points. The national development plan launched on Monday had some really good positives for Shannon. The suggestion there will be a rail spur out to the airport at long last and that it is being strategically advanced in a national plan is very important, with rail stops at the airport and out along the line through County Clare and into County Limerick. I would like Mr. Ó Céidigh's opinion on that. Is it an enabler for getting things back?

We want to see restoration of full connectivity to hubs, existing ones and beyond, and also to the US. I have described the relationship between Shannon and the Dublin Airport Authority since separation as a predatorial one. It certainly felt like that in the time before Covid. I think it is largely accepted now in the region, and indeed nationally, that it is impossible for the two to fully compete. There is a bit of the David and Goliath about it. That is just owning up to the realities of this. When Mr. Ó Céidigh stewarded Aer Arann he was leading a David versus Goliath operation as well, and very successfully. Shannon and Dublin must work off each other and play off each other and look at how, in other countries like Finland and the Netherlands, the capital airport of the country was able to benefit and strengthen them and we must look at that.

I have a very short question on the duration of Mr. Ó Céidigh's tenure. Last week the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, told us there is no length to tenures and he is going to switch the board in and out but we certainly want some continuity as we try to make a recovery. Does Mr. Ó Céidigh know how long he is going to be chairperson for? Has the come into discussions just yet?