Mr. Kenny Jacobs:

I thank the Deputy for those questions; there is a lot there. We absolutely need a national aviation policy. Every airport and every airline would say we need one. We have not had one for a while and there should be lots of inputs into the conversation. That conversation should touch on connectivity into Ireland and into the regions and what we want it to look at. It should cover resilience.

That is something that would not have been included in the past. Learning from Covid and the economic situation needs to cover resilience. No airports have had the issues we have had. We have said mea culpa. We have worked to improve it and we have improved it. We will never take anything for granted and we will never be complacent when it comes to the operating standards at our airports going forward. Policy needs to cover sustainability in a way it would not have covered it in the past. I am highlighting the key things that need to be included. It needs to allow us to attract airlines so that they want to fly here, and it needs to cover infrastructure. It is Dublin Airport versus the big hubs, as I have said. From an airline point of view, I know airlines do not just say they will move the Dublin-Chania route or the Dublin-Malaga route to Cork or Shannon instead, for example, and people will do it. Airline economics work on the basis of whether planes can be filled and whether the company can get the fare it wants. Airlines will look at that when considering moving a route between Cork and Shannon or between Kerry and Knock. That is the way it works in the regions.

There is a lot of competition and we welcome that. There is competition between the regional airports, and Dublin is competing with the hubs. As Mr. Harrison said, there are two people from Limerick and one person from Cork here, so we get it. Many people ask whether there is an imbalance in everything and if there is a Dublin bias. It is a reality when it comes to airports. As Mr. Harrison said, the airport is like a hotel. The airlines decide where they want to fly from and whether they want to use Dublin Airport, Cork Airport or any airport around the country. That question is one for them. Our job is to remain highly competitive on price, to provide a good service to the airline customers who come through and to give a good service to the passengers who use the airport. A liberalised and openly competitive market is what we need. I do not believe there is an imbalance. We want to keep an open market. The regions will compete with each other, but Dublin Airport is a different thing. It is competing with other airports like Schiphol, as was mentioned. Rotterdam The Hague Airport is different. It is more like Cork Airport. We would love to be in healthy competition. Dublin will do many things in the years ahead better the Schiphol Airport does. We would love the connectivity that Schiphol has to downtown Amsterdam. Passengers can land there and, while they might have a long walk to get through immigration, they can then just take public transport to downtown Amsterdam. That is something we do not have. We need to look at those things in the wider system.

On the question of aggressive marketing by Dublin Airport, I did not hear or see any of that. Generally, airports do not need to do too much marketing. However, I will ask Mr. Harrison to-----