Former airport heads campaign for retention

BOTH Liam Skelly and Michael Hanrahan have been campaigning for Shannon to retain ARI for months and at last Friday’s press launch they offered some non-political expertise on the situation.

 

Liam Skelly acted as director of Shannon Airport and was first director general of ARI while Mr Hanrahan is a former head of finance at Shannon. Both have been very vocal on the loss of ARI, with Mr Hanrahan having confronted Minister Varadkar on it at more than one public event.

At last Friday’s launch, Mr Skelly said that although Shannon played such a central role in setting up Aer Rianta International and making it a success, when the DAA disposed of its assets, Shannon didn’t get a look in.

“It was an integral part of Shannon and it has created a lot of money. By the time the State Airports Act came into operation it had created about €400 million of profits.

“They brought the Great Southern Hotel group, Dermot Desmond was the chairman and he said at the time that it would be a great investment for the future and it would help the future of the airport. Also, as it became profitable the profits were invested in a few items, particularly in Birmingham airport and in Hamburg Airport and in Dusseldorf, they put in total 30 million into Birmingham in about 1994.

“When the State Airports act came into being all these assets were vested in the DAA and I had fierce problems with that, because we had been level in status with Dublin and Cork, but they got these assets. The first thing they did was to realise some of the assets, they disposed of the Great Southern Hotel Group and they got 260 million for it. The three airports should have benefited out of that but they didn’t. Thirty million was invested in Birmingham by ARI and that 30 million realised €320 million. What happened that? All these things went into creating a new terminal at Dublin Airport.”

Mr Hanrahan said it had been established in the eighties because Shannon was facing a difficult future.
“It really started in 88, because there was a very big concern that inter-community duty free was going to go anyway and the importance of duty free to Shannon and it’s viability was there, so it was driven mainly by Liam and others who went overseas, so that Shannon would have a viable future.

“For the life of me I can’t see why it should stay in Dublin. If it started in Dublin we would have no claim to it.”

Writing off Shannon’s debt isn’t adequate compensation for the complete loss of ARI, and any payments made will be used as a means of pouring scorn on Shannon by competitors, Mr Skelly claimed.

“You’ll have Knock and all the others saying in a year’s time, ‘they’re pouring money into Shannon, we’ve to get the same?’ What should happen is that they repay Shannon for money that was diverted to Dublin Airport. The losses in Shannon started around 2000 or 2001 and they say the losses and capital investment comes to about €100 million and Mr Varadkar is saying that if we write off the €100 million for you, isn’t that terrific and off you go on your own. But it’s in no way compensating Shannon. Shannon should get a chance of being viable for the future.”

In this case, Shannon, the airport with the smallest catchment area, is actually subsidising Dublin, with all its advantages.

“If Shannon gets investment from the DAA it’s added to the bill, but here we’re after giving the bones of €700 million to the DAA to invest in Terminal 2. What’s going to happen about that?”