Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I find the Taoiseach's answer somewhat surprising. On the one hand, he says we need to curb international travel and take account of sustainability while, on the other, he wants to lift capacity limits at Dublin Airport. Nowhere has he discussed exploiting capacity at other airports so that people are flown directly into a region that they might stay in, when, one hopes, there is a greater balance in how people are accommodated. These people need accommodation but the State has to match that with what it provides. Instead, the Taoiseach says that this practice is going to be sustainable. We are going to have electric buses bringing them from Dublin Airport down to the west so that they can see Kylemore Abbey, the Cliffs of Moher or whatever it is and back again. Suddenly, that is sustainability. I do not wish to mischaracterise what the Taoiseach has said but that is how I have interpreted it. He might explain, if that is not what he said, what he means by sustainable tourism and balanced regional tourism in this State going forward.

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