Dr. Chris Horn:

It was indeed a matter of immediate attention and urgency, as the Senator said, and that was the backdrop to our work. As regards regional development, I note that Shannon Airport was represented directly on our committee, and Joe Gilmore of Ireland West Airport was a member of our task force. On balanced regional development, we made two recommendations in our final report on the way in which regional traffic could be stimulated, including a fixed carbon sum per passenger which could be used to stimulate traffic. I agree that there was a focus on near-term immediate and urgent actions. Medium-term to longer-term measures were part of our consideration but perhaps they did not have the same urgency as short-term and immediate actions which could impact the industry over the summer and into this winter.