Mr. Neil Pakey:

The interesting point from a Shannon perspective is that Shannon used to have an airport with 3.6 million passengers. An increase of 1.1 million passengers over a period of seven or eight years is achievable and deliverable in my view, especially when we consider the way the airport had been managed in respect of traffic development. Over the period of the previous Administration, it did not necessarily focus on the joined-up thinking we spoke about earlier, be that with Shannon Heritage, the chambers or the councils. Stakeholder engagement was not what it could be and that is one of the fundamentals to help drive traffic growth.

The Chairman mentioned Knock Airport. It has concerned me somewhat that there are no services to Germany from Shannon, yet the smaller airports in Ireland have services to Germany. I ask the question, as I have only been in the job three or four months, as to how that can be the case. I agree there seems to be some favouritism given in terms of support to some of these services at smaller airports, but I have to look at it in the round and think "live a little bit". The relationship with Knock Airport in particular can be very positive. Therefore, we have put forward an aviation policy submission with favourable references to other airports. We have not been overly concerned that we cannot get German services when some of the smaller ones seem to be able to do that. There are the territories around the west. It is not unusual to have more than one airport. It is not unusual to have some commercial tension, and it is not unusual for the two airports to work together. I have spoken to the Knock Airport chief executive officer about how we might join up a little more. In the United Kingdom model, for example, the airports work together on many of the policy and best practice issues, and we look forward to that as well.