Mr. Basil Geoghegan:

In Cork, it is slightly different because Cork Airport does not have connecting flights. It is all point to point. It is about trying to make sure that when people use Cork Airport and realise there is very good connectivity in Europe they will use it again. It is then a lot easier to sell to another airline, to say, for example, that the Zurich route has been very positive so maybe it should put on a route from Milan, etc. The other thing that is important is where Cork Airport connects to hubs, such as Schipol or Heathrow. There needs to be a number of flights a day to make it work as a hub and spoke network. Cork Airport will operate in different ways in that regard.

The Deputy asked about capital expenditure. I would invite any member of the committee to come out and look at the new runway, either together or separately. You do not have to be a construction nerd to find it interesting, such are some of the hidden things there and the groundwater tanks that have been created. It is great to see that it has been done. Once the runway is sorted, the next place we are going to have capacity constraints is at gates or stands. In some cases it is a connected gate and in others it is a stand. That was the pinch point in 2019 before Covid hit and that is what we had planned to address next. That is based on pure capacity. I am not talking about sustainability because there are slightly different expenses with sustainability.

On the regulatory model, it is not all about pricing. If the objective is to have a well-developed airport, we need to think about the future now. When terminal 2 was built, lots of people said it was a white elephant and so on. We could not get Aer Lingus to move into it. Now it is full. If the result of the regulatory building blocks is to reduce charges and keep them reduced all through a period like this, something is not working because it is not delivering the policy. That is why it has to be joined-up thinking and then we can work out what we value and what we do not. That is what we would like to see in the system as opposed to anything else, particularly as the shareholder of the airport is not a private enterprise. It is the State so it is all together.

The Deputy asked about jobs. As regards the number of jobs, we will be taking more staff on as the business grows. Members have probably seen that there are now some shortages in staff in every industry. There is quite a lot of poaching going on so we are out looking for staff and will continue to do that. Those staff may work in Dublin, Cork or overseas where there are some exciting opportunities we hope to win.

With regard to the reductions and the new ways of working, let me start by saying the staff were amazing during this crisis. We felt, as a board and as a company, that this was visited upon us. We cut back people to 80% of their working hours, which for most of the staff was 80% of pay. For some it was more because we took any performance-related pay off the table and there were some people who continued to work at 100% because that is what their job required. People pulled together well and our board pulled together well. We got the voluntary early retirement, VER, and voluntary redundancy scheme, VRS, programmes out to give people the opportunity to leave if they wanted to take early retirement. A lot of people felt Covid was a time to reset. Some 93% of staff who stayed said they were prepared to go to new ways of working. There are two cohorts that are not quite there. I would say they are not quite there yet because we have no particular desire to outsource or to have any type of unrest. I would prefer if they also came along. I do not think it is fair to the other 93% to say we will make it different for this 7%.

The new ways of working are not fundamental changes. We are asking people to work across terminals, so if someone works on a particular job in terminal 2, they should be also happy to work on the same job in terminal 1 and we can align rosters to do so. It is about following the work, so if we are very busy in one part of the airport in the morning but less busy in the afternoon we want to move people to where the work is. We want people to use company email for company communications. Some people would not use company email for that. Again, I do not think that is a big ask. We wanted people, particualrly those who are mobile around the airfield, to use iPads to take their work orders and fulfil work orders as opposed to coming back to a depot and doing everything in writing. In the end, I hope that is where we get to because there is no reason anyone should leave the fold.