Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the men from the men's shed and Councillor Murphy. An issue that he will be concerned about is Shannon Airport. I welcome the Minister of State's intention to review the regional airports programme. For the first time this year, Shannon received €4.3 million in April. It has made good use of that money. It invested in three new air bridges and a new security system, which is state of the art. Passengers can bring liquids, laptops and all that stuff through the airport. It is a much better experience than going through Dublin, for example. There are fewer queues and it is more passenger friendly. I have questioned the Minister of State on this at the committee previously and at meetings of the Fine Gael parliamentary party several times. The fundamental flaw is that the Government regards airports with passenger numbers in excess of 1 million as ineligible for the regional airports programme. I do not know if it is a good thing but Shannon will get in next year because it is under 1 million while Cork will not. In other European states, it is 3 million. It is allowed under state aid rules. We are having this review, which is welcome, but we will end up in a position where the Minister of State, or whoever is in office next year after a reshuffle or whatever, will be looking at that question. Is she in favour of changing the figure here from 1 million to 3 million?