Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour)

That is encouraging but, again, when commercial interests impact critical public services such as what should be operating out of Baldonnel, the State needs to act and look at those structural problems. One of them is the Coast Guard contract. It has been well debated here and in committee in the last Dáil and will be again. We have nearly €750 million of public funds helping to underpin a commercial enterprise at the expense of Baldonnel. That will need to be looked at. I accept, and I think the Tánaiste accepts, that this cannot be done in, as he put it, a whack-a-mole scenario; it has to be done strategically. This has highlighted a structural problem which needs to be resolved in the coming months and years.

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