David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister of State on his appointment and thank him for taking this Topical Issue.

The problem is that this has been an issue for the better part of ten years. I know that, in reality, this was substantially moved in June 2019 when former Minister, Shane Ross, and the Cabinet signed off on a proposal for €5 million. I accept the costs have escalated since. One of the reasons the costs have escalated is there has been no movement on the issue. If, in 2019, the proposal had been accepted, funded and we had all the legs of the stool in place at that point, we would be a long way in and I imagine the runway would have been built by now. Yet, here we are in 2024. Of course costs have escalated because as the Minister of State knows, there will be increasing costs for any building project that is five years late. I can point to any State project that has been delayed.

It is new information the Minister has given that additional information was given on 27 May, which I welcome. The question now is: at what point are we going to continue to have discussions about the business case? The Department received a proposal in December last year and additional information in April of this year. More meetings took place between Department officials and the board, and I welcome that. By the way, I fully accept that the Department has a job to do because it is signing off on taxpayers' money. I hope the Minister of State will also accept that there is a deep frustration in Waterford that there is no movement on this issue. They cannot see movement, at least. Given that additional information was given on 27 May, can he confirm that is the end of information being sought from the airport, that the Department has all the information it needs and now what needs to happen is a decision simply needs to be made? Can it at least be confirmed today that this is where we are at?

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