Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail)

-----voted for major projects all over the country which were just getting over the line and which, clearly, will be shafted today. Specifically in regard to that issue, I was concerned to read a statement by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Leo Varadkar, in today's issue of The Irish Times in which he took a machine gun to infrastructure along the entire west coast in his extraordinary review of the functions and status of our regional airports. The Minister has been in the House, and is a good attender here, and we have had debates with him about the regional airports but, at no time, did he lead us to understand he had so little regard for the airports in Donegal, Sligo right down along the coast to Waterford. I want to make it clear to the Minister, and I ask the Leader to convey to him, that the regional airports and the major infrastructures which the previous Government put in place, allowed those in the west to connect to Dublin in three hours and brought real life into rural communities. It is possible that a Dublin-based Minister does not understand and has not the same perspective as we have on this issue in rural areas. I warn him, particularly, to keep his beady eye off Kerry Airport, which is making a profit.