James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The DAA itself has said in recent interviews it should have acted sooner. I welcome that acknowledgement and think it is correct. I have said it on a number of occasions. There are live planning applications and a live judicial process, even though an interim decision has been made. As I said at the outset and in my statement last night, it is important all players in the system are aware and the public is aware that yesterday's decision is by no means an end in itself. It is very much an interim stay. There is much work to be done. Regardless of the ultimate determination in the courts, which is listed for December, and regardless of any interaction of EU treaties, open skies, EU-US treaties, other international laws and the Irish planning system, the simplest way to address this is for the planning application to be lodged correctly, coherently and comprehensively and for the planning authority to have the opportunity to study it, process it and arrive at a decision. If necessary, an appeal process will take place - that is part of the system at the moment - but ultimately it is that the planning authority would arrive at a decision under planning rules. That is the system we have. It works in most instances. It works best when it is supplied with the information it needs when it needs it. An early application gets an early decision and a late application gets a late decision. I think these are all fair statements to make.

All involved should take maximum advantage of the short leeway provided by the court decision to move forward expeditiously. Resources have been provided to the different agencies, including An Bord Pleanála. I have taken advice on various other options. There are limited options available to Government, if any. I have been exploring that with the Attorney General recently, but the options are limited. I can say that much for sure. The preferred way for everybody through this is that the planning process does its work. It needs everyone to co-operate and move quickly. I will leave it at that because there are other processes ongoing with this.

There is another point I will make and have made a number of times. While I have been clear that I would like to see the passenger cap lifted, and while the ultimate outcome I desire, although the planning process must do its work, is that the cap be lifted because I think the airport can go to 40 million, and I have been clear in saying that and it is consistent with the national aviation policy of the Department and previous Ministers, that said, we have additional capacity in Shannon and Cork airports. Five million extra seats are available right now in those two airports. We also have smaller airports around the country. No good reason not to use that capacity has been advanced in more than 20 meetings with stakeholders. They were helpful, informative and constructive meetings, by and large. A total of 86% of our air traffic goes through Dublin Airport. Dublin has a significant percentage of the population but it is not 86%. If we did this proportionately, we would not have 86% of people flying out of Dublin and we would have a much greater percentage flying out of Shannon and Cork. I encourage people to explore the alternatives that exist. Regardless of what happens with the cap and with Dublin, there are perfectly good airports up and running around the country.