Mr. Michael O'Leary:

I was asked yesterday in Brussels whether we are looking at countries outside Europe. Ukraine was the country we were looking at. We had 2 million passengers flying to and from Ukraine when the invasion happened. We were shut down overnight. We are committed to Ukraine. We will be the first airline back in there, and we are working on a plan. Ukraine has a population the same size as Poland and we are the biggest airline in Poland. We had planned to base aircraft in four Ukrainian airports. If the war finishes in favour of Ukraine and the European safety authorities say it is safe to go back in there, we will open up two, probably three, bases in Ukraine. We could carry between 5 million and 10 million passengers there.

Going back to the regional airports, this is a political world and this island is a village so we recognise the challenges Deputies and Senators face from their local airports. I get letters every year, and I am not a politician, from Abbeyshrule airport stating that we could have jet services in and out of Abbeyshrule if only we built a runway there.