John Ellis (Fianna Fail)

As far as the Government and everybody in the Shannon catchment area are concerned, we need to get connectivity between Shannon and Heathrow, irrespective of how we do so. Some years ago, Aer Lingus committed another serious crime regarding a regional airport much closer to me, when it pulled out of Knock and left it for dead. We saw what happened there, however, because when Knock decided to sell itself it grew the air traffic volumes using its facilities. The Shannon Airport Authority said there could be considerable savings with regard to the costs incurred by Aer Lingus. I hope the authority will now decide to make those savings available to any other airline that is prepared to provide connectivity.