Mr. Conal Henry:

I was asked by the Minister to take on the job eight weeks ago and I have been looking at it since then. This is not something we can magic out of fresh air. Frankly, it is not something I would do on my own. What I am doing is asking questions of myself and other stakeholders to see if we can have a dialogue on the art of the possible. The Senator mentioned the connectivity to Shannon, and the issue of route density is key. If there are not enough routes to feed the buses, there will not be any buses and if the buses do not come, there will not be enough routes. We have to break that cycle. That will happen but it is not trivial.

The Senator spoke about the great service that Shannon provides and said he has friends and family using it now. I urge all committee members to tell their friends. This is a small country and we can get the word out just by reminding people or urging them to use the airport once. Once they start using the airport, people tend to reuse it. Lots of frequent and regular travellers use it.