Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am ensuring that our airports are supported. Cork Airport received over €22 million last year in a range of supports. That included the regional airports programme and the Covid supports. Airlines make their own commercial decisions as to where they will go. It is up to the airports to deal directly with them. I take the points raised earlier about regional connectivity and having balance in respect of our airlines, but we need to be careful as a Government. The airlines would be the first to tell us that they make their own commercial decisions as to where they will fly. The national aviation policy, as I said to Deputy Carey earlier, was under review in 2020. The pandemic put a hold on that. We will resume that review at the end of this year. I know that these issues are very important, but regional connectivity is of critical importance, from my point of view. That is why unprecedented funding was given to our regional airports in particular over the past two years. I will continue to review this constantly in order to see what else we can do to ensure we have that connectivity.