Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Aviation affects us all because it has such an influence on industry, investment, leisure, people's holidays and so on. The people about whom we must be most concerned are the tens of thousands working in the industry. I have raised this issue with the Minister. There is a view among those workers that the response of the Government has been sluggish at best and has verged on the disinterested at times. As far back as last summer, I raised with the Minister in the Dáil my concerns over Cork Airport. We have written to the Minister to ask for a survival and recovery plan for the aviation sector and, as far back as last October, my colleague, Deputy O'Rourke, was active in urging the Minister to examine the role antigen testing can play in the aviation industry and in supporting its recovery. I hope we are no longer ignoring the major challenges that exist, that we will instead confront them and that a plan will come forward.

The reality is that it is going to take several years for aviation to recover. I think we need a clear statement to that effect from the Minister. My constituency includes Cork Airport, which employs more than 10,000 people, directly and indirectly, and many more are dependent on connected industries. I believe that Cork Airport needs a commitment of at least three years of extended capital expenditure and contributions towards operating expenses. It is going to take that kind of time to recover and I am sure the other airports are the same. That is my view on Cork Airport.

Nearly 200 Aer Lingus workers at Cork Airport have been told that they will be laid off for ten weeks at the end of this year. That is five pay packets those workers will be without. Workers, many of whom before this announcement were already under enormous pressure, are now unsure of what the future will be for them, whether the terms of their employment will continue and so on. The concern is that after ten weeks, they will be pressured into accepting reduced terms and conditions or will not be asked to return at all. Aer Lingus has received significant support from the Government through the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, and in other ways, including direct investment. I see no reason that the Government should not be putting pressure on Aer Lingus to keep these workers on, as it should and could do under the EWSS but is opting not to do on a financial basis. I have been in contact with Aer Lingus and the Minister should also make contact with the company to ask it to support those jobs. For the sake of ten weeks, and in the context of the crisis we are facing, it is only fair.

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