Mr. John Mulhern:

We are jealous of our neighbours. We think every airport in Ireland should have a connection to an international hub, whether that is supported by the State and whether it is to London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol or similar. I spoke in my opening statement about routes. My colleague and I are flying to Tangiers on Monday where we will meet a number of airlines again. However, this time we are going well armed. I have published a 120-page book about Kerry. It is about our airport and how modern we have become through State support. We were quick to climb on the ladder to convert to a green industry. Our lighting systems on the runways and in the car parks have been converted to LED. Some 90% of our vehicles are now electric. Ironically, we have the first fully electric fuel bowser in Europe. We are pulling down the amount of carbon we produce, which is great, but when we speak to the airlines they say they cannot afford to risk a route to an airport like ours because we are in a small population centre. There are 155,000 people in Kerry, of whom maybe 30% fly regularly. Convincing an airline with an aircraft worth €60 million and has 200 seats to fly to Kerry is incredibly difficult. These 120 pages provide the statistics and facts, from the State, Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and others, to show that people want to come here. The State could remove the risk for the first two or three years and then turn off the tap. If that does not work, so be it, but in those first two years, we will convince that airline that these people want to come here.

We know that 25% of all tourists who visit Ireland come to Kerry. They want to come here. What they are doing is they are getting on a plane to Dublin and then getting on a train or a bus or hiring a car. When they fly to Kerry they can get on a train to the major cities and towns in our county. We have a bus service to all of the regions of Kerry. There are five car hire companies, all of which have lowered their prices substantially again. I spoke to a company this week that is willing to put on a fleet of electric cars. Like Click&Go, people would not have to deal with a car hire company. They would just pick up a vehicle in the car park, drive it around the country and then leave it back. We are probably the most connected airport in the State.