Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are 17,000 aircraft on order by Irish aircraft leasing companies. We have a position of world dominance in this regard. More than half of all aircraft in the world are Irish-registered, and there are assets of €130 billion or thereabouts registered to Irish-based leasing companies. This is a colossal sector. Bearing in mind that 17,000 planes are on order, and just like Ireland pursued the biopharma, smart tech and social media sectors and there was a strategy to get them to come to headquarter here in Ireland, we should also now, as we look to the new year ahead of us, start looking at strategically trying to entice aircraft manufacturing. There is precedent here. The Turkish Government some time ago had a massive order of Turkish Airlines aircraft coming in. It insisted on Airbus basing some of its manufacturing sites in Turkey based solely on the quantity of orders coming into the country. I would love to see a strategy on not just maintenance and repair of aircraft but also the manufacturing of some components of aircraft.

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