Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I congratulate Deputy Mitchell for bringing this important motion before the House. I appeal once again to the Government to admit it has made a mistake of gross proportions. This tax is anti-rural, anti-development and anti-regional. Ireland West International Airport at Knock, which is close to where I live, received no subsidies or other help from the Government. Any subsidies it received were to build infrastructure. While most people do not realise it, we have had a departure tax for the last ten or 15 years. Each passenger that departed from Knock International Airport paid €10 tax because they were loyal to that airport. We saw that the money was going into the airport's infrastructure, which was run by the most professional administrative team in the country.

The Minister should meet the people at Knock Airport and see what they have done. They have built a huge infrastructure, including car parks, with money from emigrants to the United Kingdom. It was the Irish diaspora who came back. They have been hit with a €10 tax. Some of the people coming back have also been hit with a second home tax. It is lousy and it is unfair. All flights out of Knock are more than €300, and now there is an extra €10 tax. Is this how the Government treats innovation? Is it how it treats development by a professional and successful company? What we need to do is to put those people in there and let them make a complete hames of it, as happened with the Dublin Airport Authority, and the Government will then bail them out. This is how it rewards innovation and professionalism - by putting the boot in. That is not what should happen.

I used to fly to the south of the Netherlands, but because there was a tax to be paid when leaving Eindhoven, I decided, when Ryanair began to fly to Weeze Airport near Dusseldorf - it no longer does so - to fly into Dusseldorf instead and stay there, thereby denying the Dutch authorities my money. However, the Dutch authorities had the sense to see they had made a mistake. I ask the Minister to turn around and admit he was wrong, and we will give him credit for reversing this decision.

It is worrying for rural Ireland that only 12,500 cars are available for hire this year. I can hire a decent, mid-range car from Sixti in Europe for €19.95 a day; there is nothing similar in Ireland. If the Minister is serious about bed and breakfasts, rural tourism and regeneration of the rural economy, he should reverse this tax. We will all say to the Minister "Well done".

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