Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

The State Airports Act 2004 provides the framework for the establishment of Shannon and Cork Airports as independent airports. As part of the airport restructuring process, the boards of Cork and Shannon Airports are required to prepare business plans for eventual separation. That is their remit, not mine. In the first instance, all three airports' business plans must be co-ordinated by the Dublin Airport Authority for eventual approval by the Ministers for Transport and Finance. Both Ministers must be satisfied that the airports have the capacity to operate on a sound commercial basis before giving final approval to the business plans.

The requirements to be satisfied in advance of separation and in particular the need to ensure the financial sustainability of all three State airports were made clear by my predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Brennan, in this House when the State Airports Bill was debated in 2004. During the debate in the Seanad, it was stated:

. . . Aer Rianta will be able to make the transfers only when it has available distributable reserves equal to the net value of the assets transferred. [This is company law although some want to ignore it.] As the distributable reserves available to Aer Rianta are insufficient for this purpose, a phased approach is provided for in the Bill which will allow for one of the new airport authorities to be vested relatively soon after enactment, namely Shannon Airport, while the second will be vested once sufficient further distributable reserves have been built up within Aer Rianta, namely Cork Airport. A portion of the Cork Airport assets will remain in Aer Rianta and will be subject to a finance lease between Aer Rianta and the Cork Airport Authority.

This is simple, plain English. There is consistency between the policy then and the one enunciated by me now.

I have no difficulty if the Cork Airport Authority wants to wait until the distributable reserves of the Dublin Airport Authority are fully available, and Cork Airport would be handed over debt-free. I have always stated this position and have been utterly consistent. Alternatively, if the board wants to progress the separation immediately — I believe this is the right business decision for Cork Airport — it will have to accept that a portion of the debt will to have to be put in place through some form of financial mechanism to receive full autonomy.

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