Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 January 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

National Aviation Policy: Dublin Airport Authority

Mr. Vincent Harrison:

Mr. Jacobs has covered a number points from a policy point of view. Coming back to the question about capacity that was raised, within our regulatory system there is very much a just-in-time model for remuneration. There is a prize in saying that you do not have capacity in any time ahead of when you need it. In fact, you are penalised for it. A classic example of that is that ten years after terminal 2 was opened, the last one third of it was remunerated for the first time, because according to the decision of the regulator at the time, terminal 2 was too big. When we look at airport infrastructure, there are many different components and it is a bit of a jigsaw. A runway adds runway capacity but it does not add terminal capacity. Our job is to keep providing the infrastructure in anticipation of the demand of the economy, the public, tourism etc. The question has not been raised at a policy level for any of our airports as to whether we should have more capacity than we need today but enough to enable us to be comfortable for the next ten years, or whether we should have just enough capacity that we might need ten years from now, which is where we are at at the moment.

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