Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to clarify that I have not called for a curb on international travel; far from it. That is not my position whatsoever. I said that we have to take account of it and that some journeys are more valuable to the State than others. I have given the Deputy an example of exactly that. I also said we need to make sure we move towards sustainable aviation fuels. That is the future. The future, for me, is not stopping flying. I do not want to stop flying either, by the way. The future is a move towards sustainable and synthetic aviation fuels, in my view. We do need to take account of it and we also need to consider offsetting. As the Deputy knows, Government Departments do that as a matter of course.

The Government also has a policy of favouring the regional airports such as Cork, Shannon and Ireland West airports and others. When it comes to Dublin, as the Deputy knows, we take money off Dublin Airport in the form of dividends and other charges. When it comes to the other airports, we provide funding. We provided considerable funding for Cork Airport recently and also for Ireland West Airport and Shannon Airport. It is good that those airports are seeing real passenger growth now. I would like to see a lot more of it. We also need to be honest with people. Airlines decide where they fly. Airlines will make decisions, more often than not, as to whether they fly from Birmingham or Dublin rather than Shannon or Cork, and that is the reality. We need to be honest with people in that regard.

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