Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 71, 76 and 89 together.

The DAA introduced a voluntary severance scheme, VSS, during the summer of 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 crisis as part of the cost-cutting measures deemed necessary to secure the continued viability of the company. This was at a time when the DAA was losing €1 million per day, passenger traffic was substantially reduced, and there was uncertainty around the timing of a recovery with 2019 levels of passengers not envisaged until 2024 or 2025.

The DAA took a number of measures to address its cost base of which payroll was its largest cost. At the time all staff were working a four day week and salaries were reduced to 80% from normal levels, giving rise to significant savings. However, even with these temporary measures in place and given the dramatic fall in passenger numbers, the DAA advised that it needed to urgently reduce staff numbers to align with the reduced volume of business. The DAA was seeking to avoid the need for compulsory redundancies, wholesale lay-offs and permanent reductions to pay which it was ultimately successful in achieving.

Given the extremely serious situation that the DAA was in, at the height of the pandemic in 2020, the Minister for Transport and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform approved the terms and conditions of the VSS proposed by the DAA as required under the code of practice for the governance of State bodies. The VSS was closed to new applicants in December 2020 and the DAA did not start any significant external recruitment until quarter 3 of 2021 as public health restrictions on travel began to be partially lifted.

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