Joe Conway (Independent)

I will make a few observations on our status as an island nation and do a small comparison between us and New Zealand, which is a country that has roughly the same population and the same demand on connectivity we have. I am somebody who is based in the south east, which is the only region that does not have a regional airport. I will contrast that with New Zealand, which has 28 regional and international airports on its two islands. Many of those double up as civilian and military facilities. We have a great difficulty in County Waterford because we get refused or disregarded when we look for an airport runway extension. I do not want to sound begrudging, but that is very disconcerting for people in the south east when they see €200 million being given to Cork Airport and the debacle of the CHC and Bristow helicopters, where €40 million of taxpayers' money is being paid out for a lesser and more inferior service.

Now that the CASA aircraft has gone to Shannon Airport to do maritime patrol on the west coast, is there a strong argument to have a military facility at Waterford that could be used for pilot training and navigation exercises? I would go even one step further in saying that, in the context of defence and European co-operation, we should be thinking of extending the use of Waterford Airport to the French air force and the Royal Air Force, where they could do navigation for offshore missions and training. It would add to the viability of Waterford Airport.