Mr. Michael O'Leary:

I have no doubt, and this is not just relevant to the aviation sector, that as a country we need a much more efficient planning system. We need, like most other countries, a streamlined planning process for nationally important infrastructure. Such infrastructure would include airports and power generation. It is a disgrace that we did not go ahead with the LNG facility in Shannon. We have no energy policy in this country. Our energy policy consists of importing gas from the UK and electricity from France. When something goes wrong in the UK or France, we are going to be the first to be cut off. What are we going to do then? We have no backup natural gas and do not have natural resources ourselves. There are lots of plans to have windmills in 2050 and solar power whenever but it is all mañana or in 20 years' time. We need to expedite projects. The children's hospital is an example of how not to develop important infrastructure. It is located in the wrong place. It is about 120,000 sq.ft but the Government has spent about €2 billion building it. We built an office building at Airside that is 120,000 sq. ft. It is a big square box, which is the way all hospitals in America are built, and we spent €20 million building it. We must find ways, as a country, of expediting projects.

One of my great bugbears at the moment is traffic congestion. Dublin is now the second most congested city in Europe. The M50 is a car park. I am a daily commuter, travelling up and down the M4 and the M50. We should be working now on an M75 that links Drogheda, Navan, Kinnegad and on down. We are building houses outside the M50. We are telling our citizens that they can buy affordable housing in Kildare, Westmeath, Meath, Louth and Wicklow but they cannot get in and out of Dublin in the morning unless they use public transport, which does not exist. If we do not start building an outer ring road around the M50 now, traffic congestion is going to become an increasing burden given the number of cars. The port tunnel works great but we need to get the heavy goods vehicles off the M50 because increasingly Dublin commuters are going to be using the M50 and the other arterial roads. I would also be scrapping a huge amount of the useless cycle lanes that have been developed around Dublin in the last five years.