Mr. Eddie Wilson:

We had our strongest summer ever in Dublin this year. We reacted to lower airport charges which came in as part of the Dublin Airport traffic recovery support scheme, TRSS. We flew three base aircraft out of Cork Airport this year and we are optimistic as we are fairly advanced on a deal with Cork Airport at the moment to continue operating the third base aircraft into this summer. I am reasonably confident that will happen.

We now have three aircraft based in Shannon all year round. We have a hangar facility there with three bays. We are creating 200 jobs. We do not have any aircraft based in Knock airport but it is a vital artery especially for UK regional airports to the west of Ireland. We will carry almost 700,000 passenger on those routes. I was recently in Kerry Airport from where we have direct connections to Germany, Manchester and London. It is a fantastic facility which should continue to grow. That is where we are for the period 2019 to 2022. We see ourselves growing if the type of aviation policy Mr. O'Leary has outlined is put in place with competitive costs. We must have competitive costs.

I was in the Canary Islands last week and met the President. A conference of all island-economies is being held there this week and Ireland is not represented. They know what is coming for them. It is the ridiculous situation where a flight from Amsterdam to Aruba in the Dutch Antilles is subject to zero taxes but if a person flies to the Canary Islands, a €28 tax will be applied. For places on the periphery such as the Canary Islands, the tourism industry is their Ruhr Valley. If those people are not working in tourism, they will have to work somewhere else and they will have a carbon footprint somewhere else. It is imperative that we have an aviation policy to support the type of growth we can put into Ireland in order to see connectivity expand substantially. Since this summer, Ryanair has more short-haul connections out of Dublin Airport than Heathrow Airport has short-haul connections to Europe. We will be able to continue that. We have 50 aircraft coming this year, another 50 the year after and we can grow Irish airports by 50% if the aviation policy that Ryanair has set out is implemented.