Mr. Michael O'Leary:

No. The challenge we face is that our new cabin crew are generally earning between €25,000 and €35,000, so would be the lowest paid people in our operation. Within a year if they get promoted to being supervisors, they are up to between €40,000 and €50,000. Where we struggle in recent years is that we cannot find accommodation. We have accommodation for new joining cabin crew in Citywest, Tallaght and Wicklow, and no public transport to get to the airport either early in the morning or late in the evening. We felt the only way we would solve this problem was with accommodation in and around Swords where the majority of our people live, but we cannot guarantee availability of accommodation. As the Deputy knows, Swords is the fastest growing town in Europe. There is enormous pressure on accommodation, and we cannot find readily available rental accommodation around the airport. We felt this was the only way to fix it. We have now bought approximately 40 houses in and around Swords and around the Airside retail park. There was a new development going into Fosterstown and we bought 25 units there. We now have approximately 150 bedrooms, which is how we measure it. We expect to bring in approximately 150 new cabin crew every summer. We expect that will provide them with reasonably priced accommodation, but much more important is access to it one bus stop away from Dublin Airport. They will only have access to it for the first 12 months. We expect them to move out within the first 12 months. They generally form friendships and move out, and they will rent somewhere else themselves by year two or three.