Mr. Willie Walsh:

Shannon Airport has always been a good airport, and particularly from a transatlantic point of view. The promotion of the Wild Atlantic Way has been very successful. We need to continue, as a country, to continue to attract visitors into the country. The local base of the Shannon region is relatively small. Ireland therefore will have to depend on attracting traffic into the country, principally on the back of tourism, but also investment in industries that are based in the west of Ireland. There are opportunities for tourism certainly at Shannon. We have to put it into perspective. Shannon Airport is a relatively small airport. London City Airport, for example, carries three times the number of passengers as does Shannon Airport. In Geneva, where I am living now, Geneva Airport has ten times the number of passengers. The local population in Geneva is about 700,000, which is probably similar to the combined population of Clare, Limerick and Galway. What Geneva Airport has, and which it fully exploits, is proximity to skiing during the winter. A lot of people fly into Geneva Airport to travel into France and Italy, as well as Switzerland. There are some opportunities and I would not in any way try to inhibit ambition, because ambition is important. We need to be realistic, however, that the potential for growth at Shannon Airport is somewhat limited. Principally, Shannon Airport is a great airport to serve the west of Ireland from a US point of view, which has always been a strong market for Shannon Airport.