Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The situation at Dublin Airport last Sunday was totally unacceptable. Everyone was shocked and horrified that 1,000 people missed their flights from the airport last Sunday. I echo the calls for an immediate recalibration of flights to have them moved from Dublin Airport to Cork Airport and, in particular, Shannon Airport, which has a state-of-the-art security system far ahead of that in place in Dublin Airport and can cope with volume. They can also be moved to Irish West Airport at Knock, where appropriate. We need that immediately. The last thing this country needs is to have this happen again. It is doing serious damage from a product perspective and from the perspective of Ireland being welcome. People talk. More than 1,000 people have been discommoded and whether they get their money back is not the point. Some of them could not get hotel rooms in Dublin because of the shortage of hotel rooms. This issue needs to be sorted. Dublin Airport Authority need not expect the Minister to go out and solve the queues for it. It is the State agency that has delegated responsibility to resolve this and it needs to do so urgently.

I agree with Senator O’Sullivan's analysis regarding the leaving certificate. One issue with the leaving certificate needs to be addressed urgently, namely, the lack of access to examination papers for people with print disabilities and vision impairments. I welcome Eithne Walsh from Féach, the organisation that represents parents of visually impaired children and young people who are going through school. It is not acceptable that the papers for the leaving certificate are not available in a digital form in order that people can use modern technology to access them. We are an outlier in Europe on this matter.

We need a date for when the leaving certificate results will be issued. At a minimum, we need a date on which a date will be announced.It is totally unfair.