Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

What changed was real concern that, in the peak period of July and August, the last of the extra complement of new security staff would not be up to speed, fully in place, and up and running. There was real concern, especially in the advent of a Covid surge. It is hard to know where exactly we are on that but it is likely we are at the peak of that at present. It was a real concern that it would materialise as it had during the Omicron wave in January last where a quarter of the workforce was out due to Covid. It was a choice of going the way of other European airports and cancelling a significant volume of flights or looking to get the Defence Forces to help. It is true that where the real bottleneck was, particularly that skilled work of screen monitoring baggage, was not something for which anyone, the Defence Forces or otherwise, could be trained up quickly, but the proposal from the Dublin Airport Authority agreed with the Defence Forces regarding perimeter duty played to the strengths of the Defence Forces. As I said, it is only on a needs-be basis. At present, that need is not there. As I also said, I could not have been clearer yesterday with the board that if it is in any doubt, it should call them in because we do not want to disadvantage the travelling public. I am sure no one does. The trade unions and the workers in Dublin Airport are all committed to serving the travelling public in these coming weeks.