Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Senator Conway.

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House today to discuss aviation. To state the obvious, Ireland, as an island nation, is heavily reliant on quality connections internationally. The connectivity pre-Covid was second to none, but it took years to build and establish it. While we kept our borders open to maintain critical supply chains over the last 12 months, we have also allowed for essential travel. That is the right thing to do but, if we are not careful and do not take immediate action, I do not believe we will have an aviation sector left standing to help Ireland recover when the sector will be needed most.

I wish to refer specifically to our airlines. The parent company of Aer Lingus this morning announced losses of €6 billion. Aer Lingus is one of our largest employers, with over 6,000 direct employees. There are tens of thousands indirectly employed. It has a fleet of 60 aeroplanes servicing 93 international destinations. That took years to build up. Ryanair is probably the envy of the world. The company has made Ireland one of the most competitive travel markets, ensuring that our consumers get the best value. It has a fleet of 271 aeroplanes. While the Government loaned money and the Minister of State referred to the €280 million which went to the airport authorities and the airlines through the SBCI, none of it comes close enough to ensure the survival of this industry.

Both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste are on record as saying that Aer Lingus will not be allowed to fail. It is time for the Government to make a direct intervention, as many other EU governments have done to ensure the sustainability of their airlines. Germany gave Lufthansa €10 billion, Air France got €7 billion, KLM got €3.5 billion and Spain provided €1 billion. Alitalia was nationalised. All of this was done to secure the jobs of employees, to exclude redundancies and to ensure the companies remained viable, so they literally can take off when the skies are reopened. It is time for Ireland to show loyalty to the shamrock because, God knows, the loss adjusters in International Airlines Group, IAG, will not give much thought to it.

We know that travel brings responsibility. The reason we have employed antigen testing for the more than 4,000 hauliers who are leaving and coming into Ireland each day is to ensure we keep that area of travel safe and continuous. At the same time, we are allowing other travellers to be demonised and even ridiculed, to the point of farce to be honest. It is on our national broadcaster. It is just not good enough. We currently have inbound PCR testing and quarantining. We must introduce antigen testing on landing to ensure that these essential travellers are safe and that we can build confidence in this sector again. Otherwise, I fear the demonising of the travel industry will have the same impact as when we demonised the building industry ten years ago, and we can see the ramifications of that both on building and employment in that sector. We should not make the same mistakes with flying and travel.

The time for the Government to invest is now. The industry is begging us. I do not believe that is how we should be doing our business. It is time for State intervention now.