Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully concur with Senators Darragh O'Brien and Sean Barrett. The Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, was a misnomer from the day the new body was established. It was given this name because it was intended at the time to separate Shannon Airport and Cork Airport almost immediately and sell off Aer Rianta International, ARI, the retail element which consists of shops, duty free operations and other activities in which ARI engages around the world. This is no longer the plan and the Dublin Airport Authority title has become a misnomer as it involves Cork Airport and businesses all over the world, especially retail outlets in airports, consulting and shareholdings in other airports. The Dublin Airport Authority is not solely involved in airports. Further, it is a company rather than an authority and the use of the word "Authority" in its title gives the impression that it is a State agency. The title was wrong from the beginning.

The original cost of changing the name from Aer Rianta to the Dublin Airport Authority was €4 million. The company investigated what it would cost to rebrand the authority and considered a number of new names as well as the option of reverting to Aer Rianta. My preferred option was to use the name, Rhiannon, as it recalls the original name of Shannon Airport, Rinneana, and Aer Rianta. However, the estimated cost of such a rebranding was €3 million, a large sum in the current circumstances.

The company also carried out consumer research with passengers and business customers. The response to a proposed name change was firmly negative and considered to be unnecessary, unwarranted, a waste of money and potentially damaging to the reputations of the Dublin Airport Authority and Government. It was decided, therefore, not to engage in an expensive rebranding exercise and to use instead the existing acronym, DAA, in lower case.

As Senator Darragh O'Brien noted, the word "daa" is already used on signage and so forth. The change will not give rise to any costs to the Exchequer, although it may result in a nominal cost to the company as and when letterheads and so forth are replaced. The point of this change is to avoid an expensive rebranding.