David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I come to my final question. I signalled to the Chairman in advance that I would raise this and I have sent a copy of the transcript to Mr. Doyle. The Department made additional funding available for regional airports, but we had a Minister in Waterford who said there was absolute resistance from departmental officials to fund Waterford Airport and went on to say that the airport would have been closed were it not for the Minister, Deputy Ross, who was sitting there. His experience was that it was a terrible job, as he described it, dealing with officials in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. Mr. Doyle has seen that transcript. I give him the opportunity to respond. It is a serious charge to make. It would concern people in Waterford and other areas if the departmental officials were offering that type of resistance to funding regional airports. I ask Mr. Doyle to comment on that.