Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

The tax remains in place. The order has not been signed. In the jobs initiative it was pencilled in for 1 July. That date has passed because I have not been comfortable in advising the Minister for Finance that the responses have been sufficient. There are meetings ongoing with the airlines. There will be another meeting on Monday next. I hope in the next few weeks to be in a position to give advice to the Minister for Finance. Where it may arise, is that some airlines may increase capacity and others may cut it. That creates a certain dilemma. I do not wish to punish the ones that are increasing capacity but one cannot apply one tax to one airline and another to the other one. I should be in a position to make a determination at a later stage.

Certainly, I do not want to take away the travel tax and then find that most or all of the airlines end up cutting routes in the winter. That would be a mistake.

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