Dee Ryan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Aire Stáit to the Chamber and thank him for coming in to listen to us today. I also thank the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, for his opening remarks and for his intense listening when he was here in the Chamber.

When I thought about today and what I would like to speak about, I had a multitude of projects that I could have chosen to focus on. I could have spoken about the junction 28 Mackey roundabout improvement scheme that is badly needed in Limerick to open up access to the IDA business park there and the University of Limerick. I could have spoken about the great potential that we have for metro rail in Limerick. It requires relatively little investment in order to enable the final piece of double-tracking to be put in place and platforms to be put in place across the city, which would really give us a jolt in terms of developing our core density. I could also have spoken about or highlighted the motorway to Cork and the important economic links that enables and, indeed, the links that exist that justify it. I have written to the Minister on all of those projects and asked for his consideration to support all of them in the national development plan review but there was that chicken-and-egg dilemma as to what I would talk about. Listening to the contributions of Senators around the room, they were focusing on these links and how they could improve our regional economy, but I was asking myself where the rooster was in this debate. The Minister of State, with his background and area of expertise, does not need me to tell him that the rooster is, indeed, our international connectivity.It is our air access to the EU marketplace - 450 million individuals with whom we have the ability to trade tariff-free. Those who are not familiar with business and with our economy may be excused for thinking our economic growth is due to our success within the country. In fact, it is our membership of the EU and our ability to trade into the EU marketplace and to support foreign direct investment and make Ireland the home place for multinationals trading into the EU marketplace that have allowed us to see the economic resurgence we have seen the past decade or more and reap the benefits of growing PAYE and corporation tax receipts. If we do not look after the rooster – our international access – I am afraid we do put our economic success and further growth at risk.

I ask the Minister of State, as I did the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, to consider providing support for Shannon Airport. Dublin Airport has daily business connectivity into the holy trinity of air access in respect of business connectivity and economic development, namely, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam. There are multiple flights daily from Dublin into the holy trinity. Cork Airport also has multiple daily flights into Amsterdam and Paris, and flights into Frankfurt multiple times per week. Shannon Airport, I am afraid, was only recently given, for the summer period from March until October, two flights a week into Paris. Our region is trading and operating at a marked competitive disadvantage because this does not allow our regional economy to achieve its potential. It does not allow us to achieve the population growth figures we want to achieve when we think about Ireland in Ireland 2040 and managing our spatial strategy and economic growth strategy, and managing where people will live into the future. We have set as an objective that only 25% of the 1 million additional people we expect to be living in Ireland by 2040 will be in Dublin. We only want one quarter of those to be in Dublin. Limerick and the mid-west stand ready to accept higher population growth, but we need PSO connectivity to a business hub, one of the holy trinity, and support for our regional airport.