Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the group from Aer Lingus. I appreciate their being with us. They are probably in a different position from some of their predecessors. They are here representing a private company. We are not its board and, therefore, I see our role as working with them to try to figure out how, collectively, we can do more for Ireland. My understanding, at least, of where we are trying to get to with an update of our national aviation policy is to try to facilitate them, not to demand of them or to require them to do anything. It is to figure out what we, as legislators, can do better. They have identified what needs to be done from a national perspective in respect of Dublin. We have had the DAA in and have heard from others about the difficulties at Dublin Airport, and we welcome the witnesses' views on that. However, I also come from the west, and while I have always recognised the necessity for a national airport at Dublin and its continued growth and development, we do, from a balanced regional development perspective, place a lot of importance on sustainable development outside of our capital city. That is where the point-to-point issue is. Shannon Airport, which I know best, has 1.7 million passengers going through it. To grow that to 3 million would have a phenomenally positive impact on an entire region.

When we talk about regional development it is also about taking some of the stress out of the east coast. We have a housing crisis here, which the witnesses will be familiar with, and congestion pressures in this city, so small and meaningful investment, particularly on connectivity, has huge impacts in respect of population shifts and so on. We come at this from that perspective and in the context of making Ireland a more sustainable country rather than heaping development on Dublin. In that context, I welcome Mr. Moody's point that the slots at Shannon are as safe as possible. That is welcome. We have seen difficulties with that before. He talked about more capacity at Shannon. Perhaps he could elaborate on that. He also mentioned the business case being there and the demand being there. I want to kick that on its head. How can we help Aer Lingus with the demand side? Financial incentives work well. One area that is important for Shannon is a connection to either Schiphol, and I know there are issues there, or Frankfurt. Mr. Moody said that if there is a business case Aer Lingus will do it. Any airline would if the business case added up, but what can we do from an interventionist perspective that might help that?

I would also like the witnesses to consider the crew base at Shannon. There was an issue when Aer Lingus moved the crew base. I am sure there were financial reasons for doing that. It was painful for many of the staff. Hard decisions had to be taken and were taken and communities were significantly affected. What would it take for Aer Lingus to look at that again? That will play into whether there will be a red-eye flight out of Shannon. If Aer Lingus has no crew base there, there will not be a red-eye flight. Could the witnesses talk to us from their perspective about that? What would we need to do to get that online?

I will leave the witnesses with just those two questions and then I will come back with a couple more.