Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

For Aer Lingus to grow, develop and expand in the immediate future, to get access to many new locations which it wants, and to avail of the opportunities of the European-US open skies agreement as against the current position where it can only fly into the five airports, it needs the flexibility and the competitive advantage to be able to operate on that basis for its employees and the other issues. It needs approximately €2 billion, not €400 million, over the period ahead to successfully operate on that basis.

See this speech in context