Mr. Kenny Jacobs:

I thank the Deputy for his positive feedback. As I said at the start, the heroes in Dublin Airport have really improved things and I am delighted the Deputy has received feedback from his constituents that the situation is better. We are giving our commitment that it is up to us now to maintain it. The real heroes are the operations team and the security team and everybody working hard, and they have worked hard. They are certainly in good spirits looking to maintain that standard going forward.

Taking the Deputy's questions on hotels, we hear the same from some passengers. There are hotels at Dublin Airport and I can see more hotel capacity being added around Dublin Airport in the years ahead. I think that is generally an issue across Ireland. You hear that in the cities. We certainly hear it from passengers as well, who have said they thought they would be able to stay downtown but they end up in Kildare or Meath. That sometimes suits but it does not suit other passengers. In regard to hotels across Ireland, it is generally an Irish issue in terms of the capacity of those hotels, the result of which is prices going up in these hotels. All of us who stay in hotels would see that ourselves. I can echo those comments. There is nothing we can do about that other than to acknowledge the same issue that is occurring across Ireland.

On car parking, as I said at the start, there are still plenty of spaces available in July and August. People can go onto the Dublin Airport website today and see spaces in July and August. People can drop off this coming weekend as there are still spaces reserved for that. We have put more staff in to manage the operation. There is increased demand for car parking but I do not think it is the drama that is being played out by some of the media. It is not as bad as that. There are spaces available. Hundreds of thousands of bookings that were made for this summer were for as little as €8 per day. The maximum charge we have on a long-term space is capped at €15. That amounts to about three or four hours of parking in Dublin city centre. The value is good. We would love more spaces. The only thing in regard to car parking that I would like is that there would be more spaces. That is why we are trying to buy the QuickPark site that will give us 6,200 additional spaces. We then think we will have enough spaces to operate in the years ahead as public transport plays a bigger role in people getting to and from the airport. As soon as we get that green light from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, that is, going ahead with our planned purchase of the QuickPark site, we will operate that car park within a week. We are ready to go. It is just about getting those additional spaces. I do not think the travelling public needs to be as anxious as some say they need to be about car parking spaces. There are still spaces available. People will still be able to drop off. My advice would be that if you are travelling in the middle of August and you are going for two weeks, do not assume that you can come on that day and pull a ticket. It is a limited resource, like seats on an aeroplane are a limited resource. My advice to people is to go to the website and book as quickly as you can because plenty of other people are looking to do the same. We will do our best to manage it. We have been trying to get the 6,200 QuickPark spaces for more than a year.

As to the McEvaddy land and the bigger parcel that has become available, are we interested? Yes, we are. We do not want to pay a crazy price for it because then I will end up back at another committee explaining why we paid a crazy price. We only want to pay what is a sensible and appropriate price for the land. It is not featuring in our plans at present. What we will do next is we will take a look at it. We will evaluate the land over the summer period. Then the board of DAA will determine if we are going to make an offer or not. We may end up being the only bidder for the land but we are not in a rush to do so. It is not at the top of my list. At the top of my list is keeping Dublin Airport right throughout the summer. However, we will certainly take a look at it. I will take a look at it myself. We will evaluate it and then bring it to the board if we are going to make a bid for it, but it will only be at what is a sensible price. I have heard some crazy prices knocking around for the value of the land linked to a big strategic purpose. I do not see it being the piece of land where a third terminal would be based. No one has applied for planning permission for the land for three decades. If it was really strategic, that would have happened by now. We will take a sensible look at it and if we are going to make a bid for it, it would be a sensible bid for it as the summer concludes, subject to board approval.

The newer planes are operating already, which is good news. If I take Ryanair, for example, it has 32 aircraft based at Dublin Airport. Some 16 of those aircraft, that is, half of the Ryanair fleet, are made up of the newer aircraft I described. That is a MAX aircraft which will have a very low CO2 per passenger per kilometre flown. That is the key metric. That is a newer aircraft, with new engines and a high-load factor. It has a lot of seats packed in but this means you get a larger number of people travelling with a lower CO2 output per passenger per kilometre travelled. Aer Lingus is adding a new Airbus neo aircraft to its fleet. These airlines are replacing older aircraft with these newer aircraft that have a much lower noise output. They also have a lower carbon output.

On the regulatory model, which was the Deputy's final point, we are going for the ball and not the man on this one. The part of the ball we are going for is opex and not capex. We are generally satisfied with the modelling part when it comes to capex projects. On the opex piece, we would challenge some of the modelling assumptions that are made. On security, the regulatory charge is based on an assumption that we need 750 staff to run security. When we implement the C3 technology, it will be a much better experience for passenger. We think we will need more than 1,000 staff for security. There are other areas like that that are more operational, that are linked to operational resilience where we think the modelling needs to be opened up again so that we are able to get a modest increase in charges. The key point I want to keep reiterating is that we are never looking to be an expensive airport like Heathrow. We want to stay as a discounter. We want to stay very cheap for airlines. We are looking to move to something that provides a modest increase in charges that gives us the resilience that will allow us to guarantee a much better passenger experience all year round, as we have improved over the past year.