Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There have been about ten or 15 references to it. For a long time, we were trying to get the pubs open on Good Friday. It now seems to be the day people should not go to the airport.

The point was touched on that 20 minutes should not really be the base. I acknowledge that I have recently, in December, gone through Dublin Airport in less than ten minutes. However, I would like to see more ambition than 20 minutes. It is great to have that as a starting point but I do not like the idea of people arriving at the airport, particularly a family with children who are going on holiday, for example, hanging around in a queue for 20 minutes and nudging their way forward. Senator Dooley made the point that it is sometimes quite frustrating to be in a queue looking at people, where there is only room for about two or three others who are a little slow, when people want to get their belts off and empty their pockets and there is nowhere in front of them to do so. The trays might have come back so far but people cannot get to them because they do not go around a corner. Is there is a way of redesigning that? Maybe there is not, but this situation takes place in terminal 2. In addition, I do not think people realise that they can go into terminal 1 and walk across to terminal 2, andvice versa, if they realise one is much faster or slower than the other on a given day.

That may be something Mr. Jacobs does not want the world to be that familiar with. It is certainly worthwhile doing occasionally.

Mr. Jacobs might touch on the level of interaction the DAA has with the regulator. Is there a mechanism whereby it can approach the regulator? The growth figures for Dublin Airport from 1998 were 11 million up to 32 million until the pandemic put a halt on all that. Those growth figures are phenomenal. Huge credit is due, initially to Aer Rianta and subsequently to the DAA and all of the people at the airport, in the DAA and the airlines themselves. There are no passengers without the airlines. Mr. Jacobs knows from being on the other side of it that the success of Dublin Airport is a team effort on behalf of Team Ireland. Is there a limit on the capacity for Dublin Airport Inc.? Is there a passenger cap within planning permissions of 32 million or 34 million? Can it go to 60 million? What is the building capacity of the terminals and what is there now? I have sometimes used the south gates in terminal 2 and I find them somewhat frustrating. I find myself praying that the aeroplane turns left rather than right. It is 10 p.m., the aeroplane turns right, and I know I will have to get on a bus to get back. How are we going to future-proof the airport? Within the entire regulatory mechanism, it seems to be that the better you perform, the less you can charge. Perversely, the less well you perform profitably, the less money you make on retail, concessions and parking, the higher the passenger charge might be. The more money made on these things, the lower the passenger charge. It is almost a zero-sum game. There is no real reward for being better other than being better. It just means being able to charge the passengers less. That seems to be a flaw in the legislation. In the longer term is there a need for a third terminal? Does Mr. Jacobs believe that should be run by the DAA? I presume he does. Would there be an idea that someone else would run it?

We mentioned the new machines. We visited them when we were in Shannon Airport in May 2022. They are much bigger, more expensive and heavier. They are wonderful but can as many of those machines be fitted in? I believe we have to have them by 2025. How much will that improve the levels of efficiency? I would be interested in the list of 18 airports Mr. Jacobs stated Dublin Airport is cheaper than. He can circulate that to the committee afterwards. I would also be interested in the one of the 159 infrastructure projects that was not agreed to. In regard to capacity for additional airlines or airline services, I met a commercial manager of one of the airlines last summer at a function who said his airline would do a second flight a day into Dublin but it cannot get the baggage handling and check-in staff. I accept this is not Mr. Jacobs's direct responsibility, but to a certain extent everything that happens on the campus reflects on him, whether that is aeroplanes not being de-iced or bags getting lost. I know he is not directly responsible. However, how does he make sure there is minimum reputational damage to the DAA? How does he make sure the people operating on its campus do what they do?

I was in Hamburg last year and was an hour and 55 minutes getting through security. I was able to look and realise that the aeroplane had not yet left Dublin so we were not going to get into trouble, but at the same time, I acknowledge Dublin is having significantly fewer problems than other places. I do not think any of us touched on the fantastic work DAA International does. I was in an airport a long way from Dublin seeing advertising for The Loop. I was struck that this was a DAA-managed operation. We should acknowledge how well Dublin Airport Authority Inc., separate from all the wonderful things that are happening both in Dublin and in Cork, does in terms of airport management and the management of airport retail.

I am dropping two people to an Aircoach service at 3.30 a.m. to get a flight at 6.30 a.m. In regard to connectivity, what does the DAA do in terms of proactive offering of better services and more capacity for Aircoach and all the others - the private operators, Dublin Bus and so on? There seems to have been an issue around taxis. There was a yearly fee they had to pay, and there were issues around that and the fact they could drop off but not pick up. It seems to me we are missing out on taxi capacity because people have not paid this fee. Is there a better mechanism that could be applied that would allow them to pay per journey as opposed to per year so that everybody can serve the airport? All the points I would have liked to make were touched on. There is a great deal in that, and Mr. Jacobs can go ahead. I congratulate him on his appointment.