Mr. Pádraig Ó Céidigh:

Deputy Cathal Crowe raised a number of really important points which I have made note of. The first main point he made was on Shannon Heritage. The note I have here is "transition". I am not read in and am not really familiar with the situation in the heritage part of Shannon Group yet. I do not have access to documents, information or anything like that because I am not chair. I am not even on the board. It is something we will look at. It is something which, in my view, management would be driving from a transitional process and I hope that would be done. I am confident it will be, and will take all stakeholders, especially staff, into account. As I said at the beginning, I have set up a whole host of different businesses. I have been judge, and so on, of a number of business competitions. I have never seen a company grow in my life. Companies do not grow; people grow. Having said that, the people also have to come on board. There are times where there is pain and suffering for all of us but we need to look at the bigger picture. It is people who will make Shannon Airport grow. I am just one of them.

On the point about "Shannon-shaming", I cannot comment on it, to be honest. As to what is out there, rather than the double "s" in shaming, I prefer the other "s" in support. It is about working together and making it happen. Shannon does many good things for an awful lot of people, which all members know about.

On the category 9 status, it is really important that be maintained. Shannon Airport has invested in the region of, I think, €15 million in the past couple of years in upgrading the airport itself.

The national development plan is hugely welcome.

There should be a rail spur to Galway. Shannon is in County Clare and is between the third and fourth largest cities in Ireland - Limerick and Galway. Galway is critically important to developing Shannon and I will do whatever I can to get Galway people on board. If it costs more to fly out of Shannon, which in many instances I think it will not, I will work on that. I want Galway people to think as the Deputy does in regard to that. I would love if there were to be a rail spur. Public transport to an airport is critically important. Ireland is the only country in Europe without a rail link to any of its main airports - Dublin, Cork or Shannon. That is an indictment of our transport system.