Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

The Minister of State failed. He shall have his opportunity in a minute and I look forward to hearing what he has to say. The reality is that back in 2003, the Minister made the right decision, split up Aer Rianta and set up three independent airports at Cork, Shannon and Dublin — to provide some competition between them. It was also a correct decision to go ahead with the new airport terminal in Cork Airport, but Aer Rianta was to build it at the time the decision was made. In order to get Cork Airport and its staff to buy into the separation of Aer Rianta and allay concerns about the cost of building the new terminal in Cork, it was made absolutely clear at the time that an independent Cork and Shannon would be able to compete with Dublin on a debt-free basis.

Members of the new board appointed by the Minister at the time were given assurances that they would take up their positions on the basis of managing and developing a new independent Cork Airport, with a debt-free status. Since then everything has changed. The cost of the terminal was more than what had been budgeted for, but the financial management of that project was handled by the Dublin Airport Authority, not the Cork Airport Authority. Now, following a report by Mr. Peter Cassells — an initiative to try to distance Government and ministerial responsibility from this issue which was essentially based on a political promise — Cork Airport is being saddled with a debt of €113 million, which it has to service on an annual basis. No doubt, the Minister of State will dismiss this by saying Cork Airport has a land bank which it can sell off to finance some of that debt. That land should have been used for future expansion and growth at Cork Airport — to put in place moneys for an aggressive marketing budget so that Cork can compete aggressively, grow and take traffic away from Dublin, which is overcrowded.

Dublin Airport needs a competitive Cork Airport as much as Cork does. Yesterday, we saw the result of the betrayal of Cork Airport by Cork Ministers and Government Deputies, when the chairman of the authority announced he would step down in June and not stand for re-election. This was a chairman we all hoped would carry Cork forward and develop it into an airport that has the potential to grow even more rapidly, given its terminal has the capacity to take between 5 million and 6 million passengers. Instead, we have an airport that will be less competitive than it should be and more expensive for airlines and passengers because of the fact that it has to service the debt on which we were given assurances in 2003, confirmed again in 2004 before the new board was set up at Cork.

People will dismiss this issue by asking why Dublin should pay for Cork, insisting the Dublin Airport Authority has enough to worry about in developing Dublin Airport. The reality is that when Aer Rianta was split up, the Dublin Airport Authority was given assets to compensate it for taking on debt at Cork and Shannon — the Great Southern Hotel group, which it subsequently sold for €230 million and Aer Rianta International.

The board of Cork Airport voted to accept a debt of €113 million last week on the basis of another promise from the Minister to the effect that if the authority got into difficulties in servicing debt in the future, the Government would assist it on that. I want the Minister of State to clarify for the House this evening what the basis of that promise was and what the actual commitment from this Government is towards assisting the Cork Airport Authority in servicing debt into the future.

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