Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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195. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the exact nature of the state aid changes made and approved recently by the European Commission to the Irish scheme to compensate airport operators in the context of the coronavirus outbreak; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [63108/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware my Department developed a Covid Supplementary Support Scheme for Irish airports to help address liquidity issues as a result of Covid-19.  Under this Scheme, aid is available under the EU’s Temporary Framework for State aid measures to support the economy in the current emergency of COVID-19, and Article 107(2)(b) of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

This Scheme, with an initial budget of €26 million in 2021, was approved by the European Commission on 24 February.

Further to this, and following the announcement by Government on 12 October of an additional €90 million in funding under this Scheme, my Department re-engaged with the European Commission to amend this Scheme by increasing the overall budget to €116 million.  The European Commission approved the amendment of this Scheme on 3 December 2021.

The qualifying criteria for funding under the Temporary Framework was also amended at that time.  The criteria were amended to include airports that deliver connectivity and have fewer than 3 million annual passengers.  Previously only airports that delivered connectivity and have fewer than 1 million annual passengers were eligible. This amendment allowed my Department greater flexibility in dispersing aid under the Temporary Framework after our smaller regional airports (Donegal, Kerry and IWAK) were fully compensated, to the maximum amount of grant aid possible, in accordance with the Scheme.  

Overall funding allocations under this Scheme in 2021 are as set out in the table below.

This funding will compensate our smaller regional airports for the damage caused to them by Covid as well as providing our State airports with flexibility to roll out route incentives/charge rebates, in consultation with airlines, with a view to supporting recovery and growth of connectivity.