DAA is ‘sucking the life out of Shannon’ claims Carey

Shannon Airport needs to be managed locally if it is to survive according to the majority of candidates at Monday night’s debate.

Sitting TD Joe Carey said the DAA is “sucking the life out of Shannon” and that he had a clear vision for the future of Shannon Airport and is eager to see this put in place.
“It is clear that the governance structure has failed in Shannon. We are always on the backfoot. Even the name DAA is wrong. The Dublin Airport Authority running Shannon, it is wrong. Dublin is sucking life out of Shannon and it has to stop.
“We need a fresh new start with a new board focused on challenging, achievable targets to increase routes and connections. We need to engage with all the carriers to do that. I am committed to doing that. I am committed to being a link between the airport and Government and this is not just about the airport itself, it is about the wider region.
“It is about connections for business, it is about business for hotels and restaurants and all the tourism trade and we need to revitalise it and we can do it ourselves,” Deputy Carey stated.
When asked how this could be funded, the Clarecastle TD said he is in the dark over the specifics because he had not been provided with the necessary figures despite requesting them.
“I asked for figures in relation to Shannon Airport but I was not given them. We are operating here in a total vacuum. Any independence or autonomy for the airport would have to look at the financial side in depth. We need to get the figures out and we need to get them forensically analysed and we need to know where we are going. Plucking figures out of the air isn’t right. We need to know what the figures are before we start,” he pointed out.
Fine Gael’s candidates in Clare were all pushing for financial independence for Shannon Airport as this, they claim, is the best chance the airport has of surviving and ultimately developing, something which would lead to employment in tourism and businesses in the region.
Councillor Tony Mulcahy said he believed Shannon Airport could be independent of the DAA within four years and that he understood the Shannon Airport Authority, which he praised, is working towards this.
Fianna Fáil’s Dr John Hillery called for power to be devolved to the ‘local airports’ arguing that “Shannon should be able to take 2.5 million passengers per year, it should then be self sustaining and bring value to the region.” Dr Hillery said this is a particularly sensible approach because it requires little investment given that the infrastructure and staff are already in place.
Everything seems to have moved to Dublin and someone said to me in the last month that it is as if the country is going to tip over in that direction. Shannon is just a manifestation of this where we have the Dublin Airport Authority running Shannon Airport and there is no logic to that.”
Dr Hillery pointed to the Spanish policy of abolishing airport charges to the Canary Islands to encourage travel there and called for the abolition of airport charges at Shannon.
“We have a lot to offer but we need people to be able to get here cheaply so they can spend their money in the regions so airport charges have to go,” he commented.
Indeed many of the independents present at the debate said they believe Shannon Airport is key to the region’s future.
“Tourism is a huge industry we have in Clare, we need to develop that. With the likes of Shannon Airport, it was once a huge international airport. Now obviously there is a global downturn in flights. Last year Cork and Dublin decreased the number of flights by 9% where as Shannon’s volume dropped by 32%. You obviously have to look at that and try to get people into the Mid-West region,” independent candidate Brian Markham commented.