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

I raised this with the Minister, and I had the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers answer me, on 30 November. The Minister of State assured me then that "the CEO of the DAA has confirmed that, until planning permission ... is granted, it will continue to manage passenger capacity ... to ensure this planning condition [of 32 million] is not breached." DAA is breaching it. It is in the newspapers.

Is the Minister of State seriously telling me that the Government accepts the idea that if a passenger does not set foot in terminal 1 or terminal 2, but he or she goes through the airport, he or she is not a passenger going through Dublin Airport? Is the Minister of State seriously telling me that we can exclude more than 1 million people connecting flights? Arguably, that equals 2 million - an incoming flight and an outgoing flight. In addition, it excludes more than 500,000 people who did not set foot in the airports two terminals.

Do these figures exclude private jet passengers? Do they count, because they do not go through terminals 1 and 2? The passenger cap only applies to ordinary people flying on ordinary planes and not on the super rich, and that is perhaps why DAA could assure US business lobbyists a few weeks ago that they can "comfortably handle" an increased number of private jets.

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