Mr. Pádraig Ó Ríordáin:

Senator O'Brien asked why daa as a company would ask people who sign up to this for a waiver. The reason is simple. One of the reasons for the many problems in daa, and not only in terms of pensions, is a lack of clarity. As a country, we lack clarity in relation to so many matters. When this pension problem is resolved it needs to be resolved in a permanent way so that everybody can move on from it and build value in the company. The purpose of the waiver is to ensure this issue does not arise again next year, the following year and the year after that.

On metro north, we support it and have made our position in that regard very clear. We may not have been very vociferous recently but our position is very much that metro north is the right way to go in terms of capacity and frequency.

We have a very strong procurement policy. For example, we have developed the Irish whiskey collection which is now available worldwide. We pay a lot of attention to promoting Irish business. At the same time, we have a mandate from the Oireachtas to ensure we operate the airport in as commercial a manner as possible. This means getting the best franchises we can. While we, too, would prefer to have as much of an Irish flavour as we can, we have a mandate to respond to that requirement.