Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Whether we are talking about Frankfurt Airport or elsewhere, we must work through state aid. The door is open in this regard. This is why it is important to have public consultations to ensure airlines can feed into this process. We often forget this point. Being in the Department of Transport and having responsibility for aviation also means that we sometimes forget the importance of bringing in other sectors, such as tourism. It is key that these sectors feed into this mid-term review.

Tourism Ireland has put in place a marketing fund. It is doing huge work to drive tourists into the regions. Tourism also needs to provide input into this consultation process to examine how we can boost the regions as well. As I said, the airlines and airports must be discussing how this will work and ensure it will not have a negative impact on our other airports.

The same goes for other airports that might want to be driving extra traffic. Shannon, for example, should not be negatively impacted-----