Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The optimism I feel about Shannon is voiced by many people in business in the mid-west region. Deputy Harty will look at the increase in employment and investment in the greater region in recent years and see clearly that Shannon has a very bright future. It is not for me to decide whether Aer Lingus and the DAA advertise by whatever method. Some 120,000 people from the north-west would have travelled either to Dublin or to Shannon to fly to America in the past 12 months. We are aware of those figures. Competition in advertising is one thing but the loyalty of people from the Shannon region to their own locality is manifest, I am quite sure. I am not sure of the airport connections to the locations the Deputy has mentioned but, clearly, these connections are increasing in number on an annual basis. Unprecedented numbers of people are coming into Ireland and significant numbers are travelling abroad for business or for holidays now that the economy has improved.

The programme for Government sets out the objectives for the development of rural Ireland, with 135,000 of the 200,000 jobs to be in regional Ireland, with the programme announced last week by the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment in respect of the broadband programme and with the opportunity for the development and attraction of inward investment by IDA Ireland. In addition, the improvements in staff and finances to enable Enterprise Ireland to help small and medium enterprises, both the vulnerable and those which are able to export to new areas, speak for themselves.

I am not sure that the one-page advertisements in local newspapers which the Deputy mentioned are going to sway the people of the mid-west to travel to Dublin in order to fly to their destinations. People will go where they wish to go. In fact, I remember when all the trouble used to be about Shannon Airport and the landings there from America before aeroplanes would land in Dublin. I remember the late Tony Ryan saying to me down in Shannon, "Let them fly where they want because that is what they will do anyway". It is a very competitive business and it is not for me to say that Dublin Airport or Aer Lingus should not advertise. Obviously, Shannon has its own capacity to get its own message out, and it is a very good message.

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