Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

The decision in regard to the running of the second terminal was made prior to my time as Minister for Transport. I was required to implement the Government decision to put forward an alternative for running the second terminal at Dublin Airport, which had been requested by most people both inside and outside the industry, as well as by most Members of this House with the exception of Labour Party Members. I do not have available to me within the Department the expertise, skills and knowledge to conduct that process but I had a Government decision which said I must do so.

Therefore, we employed consultants to advise us, first, how we might go about such an unusual process. It was originally envisaged that it would be fairly straightforward to put a new operator in place in the new terminal. However, significant complications arose from a legal standpoint in that the DAA owned the land on which the facility was built and thus might be found to own the terminal. The cost of hiring the consultants was partly met by us and partly by the DAA itself. The function of these consultants was to guide the process in order to secure the best possible deal and the most effective and efficient terminal 2. As it turned out, there were seven or eight bids, as I recall, but none met the minimum standards.

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