Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

His colleague, Senator Fitzgerald, may have something to say about that. Deputy Barrett dismissively suggested that I should busy myself in twiddling with my laptop. That is precisely what I did during the conclusion of his speech. I used the time to respond to constituents and also to do some searching via Google, which yielded two interesting articles from the Sunday Independent of 14 January 2007. These relate how a confidential document shown to the newspaper indicated that Deputy Kenny and Fine Gael rejected plans to develop a second airport at Baldonnel while in government 11 years ago. The article notes that this revelation comes "as the country's main Opposition party leader pledged to build a second airport in the west Dublin area if elected Taoiseach this summer". Deputy Kenny has made a similar suggestion in regard to Westin Aerodrome, which is in my constituency, before executing a U-turn after coming under pressure from Senator Fitzgerald. Therefore, I respectfully suggest that Deputy Barrett discuss the matter with his party leader before floating his ideas for Baldonnel Airport. My constituency colleague, Senator Fitzgerald, will have much to say about the matter.

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