Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was in Galway at the weekend and I purchased the Connacht Tribune. When I opened it, a piece of marketing material about Shannon fell out. It gave me a little bit of confidence that somebody somewhere is doing something to try to drive the airport. I do not understand why there is not a bus route from the major population centres straight to Shannon Airport four or five times a day, even if it is loss making for the time being. At the end of the day, the old adage applies that if you build it, they will come. As far as I am concerned, a bus service would actually pay off. It would make the airport really viable. I have relations who fly over and back to Portugal and Spain. They have moved from Dublin to Shannon in recent times purely because of the ease of getting out of the airport. It is only a short hop down from Galway for them.

Mr. Henry has the team in place and he has the infrastructure within the airport itself. What he is lacking is policy and connectivity. Those are the two big issues right now. The Government must take a serious look at its transport policy. In the context of a greener, cleaner environment and reducing our carbon footprint it makes absolutely no sense to drive from the west to Dublin to fly out of the country.

I put up some social media posts after I visited Shannon complimenting the airport on my experience. The response was remarkable. I used all of the main social media platforms and a number of people were thankful that I was talking about the positives in Shannon. However, a certain number came back and called me a dozy so-and-so, asked why I did not see that one cannot get into the airport and pointed out that there are no buses or trains to Shannon. Not only that, they pointed out that the routes are limited and are only on certain days of the week.

If Mr. Henry is to be successful and if we are to measure his success at the end of his time, he must be provided with the mechanisms to drive success for the airport. That requires a serious shift in policy. Having appraised the situation, how close is Mr. Henry to coming up with policy shifts that he would like to see?