Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will try to be brief, as I have just two minutes rather than the usual four. The last four years have been difficult for all regions of the country, including the mid-west and the county I have the honour to represent, namely, County Clare. Nevertheless, there have been significant achievements, particularly given the point from which the Government started. Unemployment remains a lot higher in County Clare then I would wish it to be, as more than 8,000 people remain on the live register, but this is a decrease from the figure of almost 12,000 when the Government took power. Only yesterday there was a significant jobs announcement in Shannon, whereby 40 jobs are to be created immediately, with the intention of increasing this to 100. AMAX, the company that announced the jobs, stated that one reason it chose Shannon was its accessibility - that it was linked to other important airports. The Minister of State, Deputy Nash, who was present for the announcement, also made that point. While Shannon is linked to North America, it also has links to Heathrow and from Heathrow to many routes across Europe. The Heathrow connections are of crucial importance in this regard, because Shannon Airport is not connected to any other European hubs, unlike Dublin, which is connected to the great majority of hubs. I acknowledge that this debate could easily be portrayed as parochialism or being about one's own backyard, but it is about a lot more than that. It is not simply about Shannon; it also is about Cork and about regional development, because both Cork and Shannon rely on connectivity to Heathrow in a way Dublin does not. Second, there is a greater risk to the slots from Cork and Shannon to Heathrow than there is to the slots from Dublin, purely because the volume of business. The route between Dublin and Heathrow is one of the busiest in Europe and consequently, even on a purely commercial basis, one would expect this connectivity to be maintained even though it is not even strategically important to Dublin, while it is of vital importance to Shannon. My fear is that, should Aer Lingus be taken over, with the Government retaining a minority shareholding, a new company could decide on a purely commercial basis that instead of flying three times a day from Heathrow to Shannon, it could use those slots for much bigger aeroplanes and could fly to more lucrative markets.

That would be a huge strategic loss for the mid-west and the county of Clare, which I represent.

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