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

Committee hearings means that when one submits something one has the airline's point of view because it must run a business. At the same time let us consider what happened during Covid. We gave €160 million to the airports and airlines, so we put a huge amount of funding into the sector. Today, a huge emphasis has been placed on Shannon Airport but the same can be said for Kerry Airport, Ireland West Airport Knock and Cork Airport. The airports did critical work and proved that they have a business head. They are commercial entities that want to thrive. The Government and I want them to thrive too. No matter who the Minister of the day is, we do not want to give out handouts for the sake of doing so. We want the airports to be commercially viable. I have visited Cork Airport, Shannon Airport and Ireland West Airport Knock where I saw at first hand the extra flights they have secured by dealing directly with airlines. One may have the management of an airline say the Government cannot direct them to go somewhere, which is fine and we all understand. However, airports negotiate directly with airlines to encourage them to use the airports. The question is what else can we do to attract more air traffic into the regions and that is why we need to open up the conversation to businesses to see where people are travelling. We must do that as there is no point setting up a direct flight to a destination where there is no demand because the route would be subvented, which nobody wants.