Mr. Michael O'Leary:

We should explain that those are total traffic numbers for each of the airports in 2019. We carried 38 billion passengers. We think 50% growth is possible in the next five years. We will not deliver all of it but we will certainly deliver most of it. We can grow our existing traffic at Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock and Kerry airports by 50%. Most of that growth will clearly take place in Dublin Airport where we have the benefit of a second runway, which - credit where it is due to the DAA - was fortuitously built during a recession and during the Covid-19 pandemic. That was the right time to build a second runway. Terminal capacity is the restriction now. We need another low-cost terminal, like pier D, that runs to the north side of pier D when you go across the big skyway to pier D. We need to build something up to the right. An equivalent of pier D could be built there for €120 million. It does not need a tunnel under a taxiway that serves nothing.

Cork Airport does not need any additional infrastructure. It only needs lower access costs. Again, we should give credit where it is due, the new management team at Cork Airport has been quite imaginative at coming up with growth incentives. Since Shannon Airport was separated from the DAA, it has been terrific. Mary Considine and her team have done a remarkable job. Shannon Airport is difficult. The biggest threat to traffic growth in Cork and Shannon Airports is Dublin Airport. We used to operate three flights a day from Dublin to Cork and the day the Fermoy or Mitchelstown bypass opened, traffic went from 90% load to zero. Everyone drives. However Cork Airport is growing strongly with European traffic inbound to Cork in the summer and some charters outbound. Knock and Kerry airports are doing well. They are well-run airports and we are working with them but it is difficult to drive significant additional growth to Knock and Kerry airports because we cannot base aircraft there late at night. There is no demand for those services.

We have set out what aviation policy should be for Ireland. We need to put it in writing and challenge our Government and our industry.

If we put in place incentives for growth and challenge Europe's lazy environmental taxation so we are not penalising the peripheral countries, can we increase traffic by 50% over the next five years and create another 14,000 jobs? The answer yes we can.

I do not want to make it the central point of today, but I urge the committee to investigate what is going on with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications on its emission trading system, ETS, revenues. Its analysis shows ETS revenues of €140 million over the last three years. Bus Éireann school transport is taking 77% of that money. That is not money being spent on environmental or climate projects. We wrote to the Department, and I do not need to tell the people in this room who can read English, but when somebody is not answering a question they use words like "an amount equivalent to" 100% of Ireland's ETS revenues "has been attributed to" emission reduction activities. We know when people are speaking in French, that is classic French. We wrote back and asked what the €28 million, the €30 million, and €32 million of climate finance money was being spent on. We cannot get an answer beyond taking its assurances that amounts equivalent to this have been attributed to emission reduction activities. We do not begrudge the school bus fleet the money, but it should not come out of moneys that Ireland is telling Europe it will spend on environmental measures. The aviation industry is challenged. We need to work to come up with more supplies of sustainable fuels at our airports. We are investing heavily in winglets to reduce fuel consumption in new aircraft. We do not think it unreasonable that some of that investment will be supported with some income from these funds. That is it, Chairman. I thank the committee for listening.