Mr. Michael O'Leary:

Statutory remits are a movable feast. We certainly know that around this building. The DAA has a number of different remits. There is a board writing ministerial instructions to the Commission for Aviation Regulation, CAR, to the effect that in any determination, the financial viability of Dublin Airport takes precedence over everything else. I would not worry too much about Dublin Airport. It is not going to struggle. It is very profitable. It wastes significant amounts of money building stuff which is not necessary and we do not need or want. It keeps digging up the same concrete. It will dig up concrete on the ramp which it poured three or five years ago. It is always repairing some concrete. The airport spends money prodigiously. Sadly, it is usually spent in the wrong places.

I do not want to rehash the issue of Terminal 2 but the DAA spent nearly €2 billion on that terminal and only managed to deliver 12 additional pier-served stands. It has since had to convert the old cargo building so that Aer Lingus could put more stands over there. Aer Lingus has to bus its passengers out to that building. Having spent €2 billion, it is a disgrace what has been built there.

We come back again to choices. Do we really want to spend €200 million building a tunnel under a taxiway that nobody needs, or do we want to spend €200 million building increased facilities for passengers? We could have increased duty-free shopping and restaurants. There is a great deal of money there and it is self-financing.

The big cost at an airport that is difficult to finance is runways. The DAA has managed to build a second runway and it does not need to build another runway for the next 100 years. It now to build very efficient low-cost terminal facilities so that we can reduce costs and add more flights at lower access airfares for Ireland’s connectivity. As we have set out here, we want to pursue an ambitious programme of growing from 38 million passengers to 57 million passengers over the next five to six years.