Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

Yes. I also had meetings with officials in my Department and their counterparts from the then Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Furthermore, I had brief discussions with representatives of Aer Lingus at one stage. I was, therefore, fully briefed about the matter while events were unfolding.

Hangars 3 and 4 were available to Mr. O'Leary at the time. One of these hangars is similar in size to the facility at Prestwick, while the other is larger. For some strange reason, however, a facility the size of that in Prestwick did not appear to fit the bill in Dublin. As the Deputy is aware, Dublin Aerospace had an interest in some of the buildings at Dublin Airport. Subsequently, that company established operations in hangar 5 and part of hangar 1. In addition, an aircraft painting company was due to move into certain of these buildings. The contract in that regard was awaiting signature prior to my departure abroad to carry out my duties for St. Patrick's Day and, as far as I am aware, that contract was signed. Much of the hangar space that was available at the airport is no longer unoccupied.

I cannot inform the Deputy with regard to the exact number of people Ryanair has made redundant in Ireland during the past ten to 15 months. I cannot argue against the figures he provided. As a result of cuts on routes from Shannon, Dublin, etc., I have seen a number of different figures from Ryanair in this regard. Announcements of job cuts of that nature on the part of Ryanair are usually accompanied by a tirade of abuse against the Government, individual Ministers, the DAA or whomever. The purpose of this is to distract attention away from the fact that such jobs are going elsewhere. That was the case in this instance, when Ryanair decided to try to create as much of a smokescreen as possible. That is par for the course with this company.

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