Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

It is not just my idea; it was a decision reached by the Government after a year of discussion. The minor costs which the Minister must pay include those relating to the issue share capital of a public limited company, for example. Those types of pre-incorporation costs must all be borne by the Minister. Once the airport authorities are fully incorporated and the boards legally in office, any costs that emerge must be dealt with by them. I do not envisage significant costs but I cannot anticipate all those that will arise. The boards must work them out and strive to keep them to a minimum because they must be paid without Government assistance. It would be quite silly to have three airport authorities legally in office as public limited companies while the Minister for Finance is paying bills based on decisions made by those authorities. The authorities could decide to engage experts, hire lawyers or sanction significant building work, for example, as part of the restructuring operation and send the bills to the Department of Finance. That would be daft. It is entirely sensible that the boards should decide on the restructuring costs themselves and the best way to keep the costs down is for the authorities to pay them.