Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 November 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

National Development Plan 2021-2030: Discussion

Photo of Joe CareyJoe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has committed to producing a rail map as opposed to a roadmap for that project, which I welcome. He might correspond with me on that.

Since I am talking about Shannon, there is a need for a new national aviation policy. Reference is made in the national development plan to it. Work on it has been delayed because of the Covid pandemic. Will the Minister please outline what the thinking is in the Department at present in respect of getting work under way on that policy? Will there be an opportunity for stakeholders to engage in that process? I would like to see a lot more balanced regional development and more activity through Shannon Airport and the west, which will be a way to balance regional development. We need to link national aviation policy with the national development plan. It is great to see aviation policy mentioned in it. We need to get work under way. The Minister needs to engage with and listen to stakeholders in that regard. He needs to look at the benefits of spreading out aviation traffic in a fairer way throughout the island.

It is interesting on aviation. I look forward to meeting again the new chair of Shannon Airport, former Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh. My sense is he will be looking at this area and may have a particular emphasis on how Shannon presents itself as a centre for sustainable aviation. It has the advantage of a very long runway which can take heavier payloads than other airports and, being further west, it is a lower carbon solution when crossing the Atlantic.

I met the UK transport minister recently. They are developing a strategy where they look to use 10% biofuels or synthetics fuels in aviation as a way of decarbonising. In my visit to Glasgow last week, I happened the chief executive of United Airlines, who said the same thing, that they want to be the best in developing sustainable aviation solutions. I said something to him which is broad and long term but real. It is that we will develop the Shannon estuary as a centre for low-carbon technologies. We will have offshore wind, convert to hydrogen and look for industries that want to use that low-carbon energy source. The power-to-fuel concept or the idea of synthetic fuels is at an early stage. No one has scaled up an operating model but the UK Government says it wants to do so. I said to him that if he wanted a partner to centre and test some of these sustainable development solutions, Shannon might be as good a location as any. It was at the forefront of the development of transatlantic travel with the flying boats coming in. The airport is located right beside where we bring the power ashore. My strategic thinking is that must give us potential opportunities to connect the two and give the airport a significant long-term future. If we crack that, Shannon will boom.

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