Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes. At the time, when we were looking at the cap, it had nothing to do with climate. That was not the argument as to why there was any cap. I suppose the cap was probably put in at a time when the airport was dealing with about 15 million people a year and it was never thought we would get to 30 million. A figure was just pulled out of the air of 32 million. I do not know why it was 32 million and not 28 million or 36 million. The feeling was that we were never going to reach the cap anyway so it did not matter, but here we are now. We have just spent over €300 million on a second runway, over €50 million on a tower to look over and observe the second runway, and now we are saying we should have less activity than we had before. I get what is being said about people living near the airport wanting certain quiet times in respect of night flights and so on. I do think the metro will do a certain amount, but, equally, it is about there being buses from everywhere and frequently. Who the hell wants to drive to the airport and pay €43 or €50 daily in the short-term car park or even €10 or €20 in the long-term car park if they can get the Aircoach bus? That is if there is one and it is near people.

I was talking to someone at the weekend at the coach tourism show. The annual dinner and awards and bus show was on in the RDS at the weekend. There are now bus routes from Limerick to Dublin Airport. Now, perhaps they should be going to Shannon Airport too, but these buses are bringing people to the airport who are not driving anymore from Limerick to Dublin Airport. They are not driving from Tullamore or Portlaoise. I think the airport is the biggest bus terminus in the country after Busáras, but the ramping up-----