Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and thank her for her presence this afternoon. I acknowledge that we have a severe weather alert and there has been a major issue across Europe with weather incidents. It is important that the 35,000 passengers and travelling members of the public who have been discommoded over the past five days are looked after and adequately and properly recompensed. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, which has heard concerns expressed around the preparedness of Dublin Airport Authority for the Christmas holiday period. Notwithstanding the weather, and the points the Minister of State made in her very informative speech, is the DAA prepared? What was the contingency plan for de-icing? The Minister of State mentioned that within an hour of de-icing, people had to be brought in to de-ice again.

In the Lower House, Deputy McDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin, accused the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, of being asleep. To be fair to him, it is not the Minister's job, nor is it the role of the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, to make sure everything is prepared and the airport is winter ready. It is the role of the DAA. I know from engaging with the management and staff of the DAA that they are very competent and capable people, but the debacle last summer raises concerns among us all, if we are being honest, and not just among the travelling public.

Many independent commentators and analysts will tell us that travel numbers are back to pre-Covid levels. The Christmas travel period is coming. Representatives of Ryanair recently appeared before the transport committee and Aer Lingus representatives appeared at it this morning. I am a little concerned. The Minister of State indicated that the number of staff before Christmas was to be 800. There are now 645 so that leaves a deficit of 155 staff members. Representatives of Aer Lingus reported the same figures this morning at the committee. The company met the DAA about different issues.

Our job in this House and on the transport committee is to represent the people and we would not be doing our job properly or correctly if we did not articulate the need for the DAA to come forward with a clear and precise plan. To be fair, the Minister of State gave us an outline of that based on her meeting with the DAA's chief executive. Does the Dublin Airport Authority have the capacity to deal with the surge in people travelling for Christmas? Mr. Kevin Cullinane, who is a very fine official and a valued member of staff and management in the DAA, stated the airport would be able to cope with the volume of passengers. We thought the same last summer and look what happened.

The Minister of State spoke about the number of lanes open, the number of staff on duty, processing ability and queue times. That is excellent but the plan is only as good as its execution. If the plan is not carried out to the letter of the law, there could be trouble and I do not want that to happen. As we all know, our aviation sector is critical to jobs and central to our tourism sector, both for inbound tourism and, more important, outbound tourism in the context of the perception of Ireland.

I am pleased the Minister of State has met with representatives of Dublin Airport Authority and was given reassurance. It shows that she and her colleague, the Minister, have been proactive. There is a grey area between the responsibility of the airline and that of the DAA. To be perfectly honest, the members of the travelling public do not care, do not know and do not necessarily want to know where the responsibility lies. All I want to know, if I am taking a flight from Dublin to Rome, for example, is that I will get there at X time, get back at Y time and I will not be discommoded. Anecdotally, I understand some people spent five days trying to get in and out of the airport.

I thank the Minister for her presentation and her engagement. It is reassuring that she has been proactively engaged on the matter. She must hold the DAA to account. The travelling public want her to do that. I thank her for being here and for the meeting today.