Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The chaos that was seen at Dublin Airport is the consequence of DAA management choosing to slash staff numbers, wages and conditions, taking advantage of the pandemic to drive through a shock doctrine. We have been warning the Government about this for the past two years but the Minister for Transport was asleep at the wheel. Two years ago, when the DAA announced plans to sack hundreds of workers, I spoke out multiple times in the Dáil, warning this would be disastrous. The CEO of the DAA, Mr. Dalton Philips, appeared before an Oireachtas committee in July 2020 and, again, we challenged the authority about its short-sighted, profit-driven agenda. The Government has no excuse. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, knew that the DAA was using the pandemic as an excuse to cut workers and is now trying to replace them with workers on low wages and poor contracts, and he let it get away with it. The result is serious staff shortages, massive queues and thousands of people missing their flights.

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