Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay. We have constantly spoken at this committee about regional rebalancing. It would not come as any shock that many Deputies, and even Senators at the joint committee, would extol the virtues of Shannon Airport, which obviously would have nothing to do with their geographical location or whatever.

In fairness, despite some of the serious discussion that has happened here regarding that matter, until a point when a determination is made by the Minister for a State or so-called national strategy that builds it in, it will not happen. It will be nothing but empty rhetoric or press releases at times of danger when we need to look at regional airports. It has to be actually built in. Otherwise, we will get what the DAA says, namely, that it is all well and good talking about that but, ultimately, if we lose slots or whatever, we will lose them in Vienna or Heathrow. Until a point is reached when there is a determination at Government level to make this happen, it will not happen.