Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is timely, as Dublin Airport is providing us with an economic briefing this afternoon. Based on where the Deputy Leader is situated, I am sure she will probably be attending it herself as a fellow member of the transport committee. I mentioned it briefly yesterday but at this time of the year, Dublin Airport is very close to approaching its cap on numbers as we head towards Christmas. I know the Deputy Leader has family abroad and may want to travel to them or them to her. There was an article in the The Irish Timeslast week about Dublin Airport working with airlines to manage the cap but what does this actually mean? It is important that we invite in the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan, if possible, to discuss where we are going with the future longer-term development of Dublin Airport. It is very clear that there has been a huge bounce-back in aviation traffic, which is very positive in lots of ways but equally presents challenges for the airport cap, setting aside the complications with the runway. In the longer term, we are looking at things like sustainable aviation fuel and hydrogen and so on, to power aircraft. The projections are very strong and may be pass the 32 million figure shortly. We need to look at what the story is vis-à-visextra capacity in the airport buildings whether that be a third terminal or an expansion of terminals 1 and 2. I seek a debate in this House sooner rather than later because none of us want to see airlines starting to cut services and depriving people of the opportunity to travel based on the cap. Regardless of our views on whether aviation is as sustainable as other modes of travel in terms of climate change, it is very important we would all be able to get on and off the island. I would like to have that debate as soon as we can after the recess.