Results 5,761-5,780 of 5,781 for speaker:Cathal Crowe

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth: School Transport Scheme: Discussion (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I have the final speaking slot. I have three minutes. I wish to return to Sixmilebridge and the pilot scheme there. While it may seem parochial, it is not. Everyone in here needs to be tuned into this pilot scheme because it could be somewhere else in the country next. I have asked for the costs of the scheme. After posing all of those questions, the response I will get will outline...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth: School Transport Scheme: Discussion (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I thank Mr. Kent. Before we conclude, this is our final committee before the summer recess. If anyone wants a good summer read, the book written by former Minister, Mr. Eoghan Murphy, Running from Office, is quite good for all of us to read. It starts off about his personal journey in politics, which is similar to all of our own experiences, but approximately three quarters of the way...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I thank the witnesses for being here. Have there been any Russian military flights, rogue flights or RAF incursions into Irish airspace in the past 12 months?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I would imagine that the IAA would have a bit of information.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: We are aware of that. We are aware of the IAA's functions, yet sometimes the civil aviation radar gets dotted with rogue flights and flights that do not have a transponder at a given time. Will Mr. Fitzpatrick comment on that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: Is Mr. Fitzpatrick familiar with Project Ireland 2040 and the national planning framework?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: Both documents speak very loudly about balanced regional development and not having everything Dublin-based, yet, as other speakers have said, Dublin has a hugely dominant position in terms of all flights that take off and land in Ireland. I think the figure is around 84% or 85% and it has been higher in the past. That leaves the five airports along the western seaboard vying for that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: Shannon Airport in my constituency can increase its passenger take fourfold, by up to 10 million, without changing a single thing or adding a single brick to the building. Dublin, on the other hand, has to look at expansion. There is all the stuff with An Coimisiún Pleanála, which is a separate debate. Let us leave that over there. Nevertheless, Dublin is pretty much at capacity...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I may interject before my time runs out. I appreciate mothership Europe is always bearing down on the Government with regulation, but we also have our own policies here at home. We have our national aviation policy which we are going to review. We have Project Ireland 2040: National Planning Framework. At the moment, Irish aviation policy is tone deaf to those policies. It does not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: If we changed the policy the IAA would have to adhere to it. Is that the case?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I propose that when we go about the national aviation policy - we will have to do quite a body of work on this - our committee should be cognisant of the lack of regional balance in it and we should seek to insert new criteria. We appreciate what the IAA does. It works in frameworks and we have to set the frameworks. Going forward, there should be some criteria whereby when an application...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: You will get the Liam MacCarthy Cup and that will be enough for you.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I want to go back to the point I made a short while ago, lest it be misconstrued. A few months ago, I floated this idea and within an hour, the DAA had issued a press release to the effect that I was ridiculously suggesting that there be a Shannon stopover. I know that cannot happen. That would be illegal, ludicrous and contrary to EU law. No one is talking about winding back the dial,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I appreciate that. It is a majority. Something like 60% or 70% is being picked up by the Woodcock Hill radar. For disclosure, I own farmland abutting that facility and am from that community. It concerns me. Woodcock Hill has existed since the 1970s and that radar is all-important, above everything, to air safety, but it is also a lucrative national asset. Many of those aircraft that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: But they are paying money to Ireland.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: It is a different rate collector but they are paying. Air safety is number one and it is also generating money. Would Mr. Fitzpatrick agree that it is a strategic national asset?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: Is that compromised by the many wind turbine applications that are currently being applied for in the east Clare area? Some would stand 180 m tall and it could be argued that rotating blades, with four, five or possibly more rotations per minute, would interfere with the radio wave that goes from the radar, pings off the airplane and gives the air traffic controllers the vertical and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: I appreciate Mr. Fitzpatrick's answer. I am conscious that we throw a lot at the witnesses at these meetings. What I am going into is very granular. In this case, the Irish Aviation Authority is a vast organisation and we are a big enough country, even though people say it is small. It has on this occasion identified problems and risks. It has objected and appealed in the planning...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport: Irish Aviation Authority: Engagement (16 Jul 2025)

Cathal Crowe: It told me to ask the IAA.