Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I usually start be welcoming the Minister and the Bill. It is seldom that I fail to welcome a Government Bill, being usually disposed to giving the Government the benefit of the doubt. I can summon up no welcome for this Bill. There seems to be no sense whatever behind it. Having listened to the Minister, I am as much in the dark as to the reasoning behind this project as I was when it was first mooted some months ago.

I listened carefully to the other contributions. Senator Ross hinted that it might have something to do with the Minister seeking a way to sack the board. Senator Browne suggested it might be about what might happen to the various airport shops around the world. The Minister did not refer to that. Senator Coghlan asked what would happen to the hotels. I am sure the Minister will respond to these points. Perhaps it has to do with something about which I have not heard.

We are told the purpose of the Bill is to introduce competition between the three State airports. I find the concept of competition difficult to understand in this context, given that the three airports are more than a hundred miles apart. Is it seriously suggested that an independent Shannon Airport, or an independent Cork Airport, will put its mind to poaching passengers who now fly to Dublin? If I want to fly to Dublin, that is where I will fly, no matter how cheap it is to fly to Shannon or Cork instead, and no matter what other benefits there may be.

If the problem is that Aer Rianta in its present structure has failed to fully develop the potential of Cork and Shannon, I have no problem in agreeing with that proposition. This is a problem that not only affects the airports, but the tourism industry in the areas served by those airports. In recent years we have seen a sharp swing to visitors seeking short breaks. That was discussed on radio yesterday. As a result, tourism is flourishing in Dublin and in the east but is lagging behind in the rest of the country. To develop short breaks in the south and west, we need air routes that will take people directly to the heart of those regions so that visitors spend the least possible time travelling. So far we have not managed to create those air routes, and it is urgent that we do. I am sure that is part of what the Minister is trying to do.

Will creating separate boards in Shannon and Cork do the trick in this regard? The Minister seems to think so. I have no reason to disagree with him. However, I fail to see why Aer Rianta should be broken up into three totally separate companies in order to achieve this. Senator Dooley made it clear that he would support the Minister, but he did not understand why. Within the existing Aer Rianta structure it would take only a stroke of the pen to give Cork and Shannon Airports all the autonomy they could possibly want, with separate boards, separate business plans, separate annual reports and accounts. I do not understand why that cannot be done. That would be normal business practice. In recent days I have searched my memory for examples of commercial companies where this sort of thing has happened, where a large company decides it wants to do other things. I found one — PepsiCo, a very large American company, one of the top 20 in Fortune 500. It decided to hive off its Pizza Hut business because it was a separate business from the drinks business. Pizza Hut went out on its own and is very successful, and PepsiCo went its way and is also very successful, because they were separate businesses. I do not understand why companies operating in the same business should be broken up instead of operating as three separate companies under the one umbrella.

The problem of developing these airports could be addressed in a much simpler and much cheaper way without any of the opposition the present proposal has thrown up. The Minister seems to have quite unnecessarily taken the hardest possible route to achieve his goal. We talk in business terms about synergy in terms of almagamations and mergers. The benefit of mergers and amalgamations is that some costs can be shared. One example would be a consultancy regarding safety. Must each of the three separate and totally autonomous airports buy that consultancy regarding safety from the consultancy company? If they were all part of the one umbrella organisation it would need to be bought only once and shared between the companies, and there would still be competition.

Despite the best will in the world, I have yet to hear a sound business case being made for shaking up Aer Rianta in the way the Minister proposes. We need to remind ourselves that this case is quite different to Aer Lingus. What is on the table regarding Aer Lingus is privatisation. The Government is quite emphatic that there is no question of privatising Aer Rianta. On balance I agree with that. A nation's airports are part of its strategic infrastructure and it is vital that they always operate in the national interest rather than in pursuit of private profit.

If we are not privatising Aer Rianta, why are we breaking it up? Especially when doing so creates a whole host of unwanted and avoidable problems about which we have heard in recent days, for example, the issues that have arisen with the company's banks and bond holders? What will breaking up the company achieve that creating three wholly-owned subsidiaries would not do?

What I find so difficult to understand is that the present proposal misses the target and, what is even worse, it is the wrong target. I see nothing in this Bill that would address what many people see as the most urgent problem facing Irish aviation today, namely, handling the spiralling number of passengers at Dublin Airport in a more efficient way.

What has happened regarding the issue of the new terminal at Dublin Airport, which has been identified by Fáilte Ireland as one of the top three infrastructure developments that are needed if our tourism targets are to be met? Deciding to build that terminal and deciding on the form it will take are far more urgent considerations than is the break-up of Aer Rianta. That issue, which is a real and practical and urgent issue, has somehow got pushed to the back burner while the Minister has gone flat out to achieve his holy grail of breaking up Aer Rianta. I cannot help feeling that when the economic history of Ireland in this decade comes to be written, this project will be singled out as one of the great follies of our time.

This is unnecessary legislation which is badly conceived and badly thought out. I very much regret that it will inevitably pass in this House this week and eventually become law despite the many reservations about it on all sides of the House. If we pass this Bill, it will be a bad day for Ireland, and a very sad note on which to end this session. I believe the Minister has some reason that he has not told us about. I hope he will break it to us before the end of this session.