Mr. Michael O'Leary:

Security at an airport is a logistical issue. Did Dublin Airport screw up in April, May and June of this year? It did. It was short-staffed. Fundamentally, security is a function of having enough people. The airport has enough X-ray machines to handle 34 or 35 million passengers as long as all the machines are manned. The DAA did not man sufficient machines and if it backs up first thing in the morning there is no way of recovering that because the waves of passengers keep coming. To be fair to the authority, it recovered it very well. We were very critical at the time. We felt much of it could have been avoided if we had called out the Army or security forces to give the DAA personnel in the short term. The situation would not then have arisen.

We are very much in favour of the 3D scanners. However, we are in correspondence with the DAA at the moment as we are very concerned it may not have enough staff there for this Christmas. The authority tells us it is hiring and recruiting. It is talking about putting in the 3D scanners in the spring but it is talking about taking out existing lanes to put in the scanners, which will reduce the security capacity at Dublin Airport. If the DAA is to put in 3D scanners they need to be in additional lanes. They need less manpower and mean fewer people taking stuff out of their pockets. It is a logistical exercise. To be fair to Dalton Phillips and his management team last summer, they threw labour at it and got away with it by the skin of their teeth after a very poor period from March to May. However, we are not out of the woods yet. We are concerned about the Dublin Airport staffing this Christmas. The DAA needs to start recruiting now. Easter is on 7 April next year. We are in dialogue with the authority and it has interim management in place but we are concerned. I will put it no more strongly than that.