Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like Senator Buttimer, I raise the issue of aviation policy and call for the urgent appearance of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport before this House. I am concerned about the airports in the west, particularly Shannon Airport. In fact, I have never been more concerned because, only yesterday, the Minister apparently ruled out any option of bringing Shannon Airport back under Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, management. If that is the case, it will have catastrophic consequences for Shannon Airport. The reason is simple. The stand-alone airport policy was always fundamentally flawed and has been failing for years. It was failing long before the Covid crisis. We could see that in comparison with how Cork Airport was performing under the DAA umbrella. It was failing because it makes no sense to set up Shannon Airport to compete against Cork Airport or Dublin Airport. When an airport is set up in that fashion, it has no leverage in negotiating with airlines. In fact, that model allows airlines to pick off airports.

What we need is joined-up thinking. We need a joined-up network of airports and a progressive Minister who insists on rebalancing flights. I call on the rest of the mid-west representatives, some of whom I see here today and with whom I have worked on this issue, to come out clearly on this matter now because it will be no good in six or 12 months. This is not about local party political advantage because we will all be losers if we do not save Shannon Airport. The model is fundamentally wrong. We need a change in thinking and it can happen. I am genuinely concerned about this. I did not believe we could have a worse Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport than the previous one. I had hoped we would see new thinking under Deputy Eamon Ryan, but coming out yesterday and effectively taking a civil servant's advice to rule out bringing Shannon Airport back under the umbrella of a properly thought-out network of airports was just disgraceful. I call on all of us to act together in unison to save the mid west, Shannon Airport, and the 55,000 jobs and €3.5 billion in income that depend on it. I call on the Leader to get the Minister in here as soon as possible.