THE development of a third terminal at Dublin Airport will undermine the National Planning Framework, Project Ireland 2040, to the detriment of the Mid West region.
Limerick Chamber chief executive Dee Ryan was responding to media reports about the national airports plan brought to cabinet on Tuesday by Transport Minister Shane Ross when she said that Dublin Airport was becoming a wrecking ball for balanced regional development.
“Airports are recognised as catalysts for growth. If a region’s airport is strong, the regional economy will be strong,” said Ms Ryan.
“A key factor in Dublin’s rapid economic growth is the growth of its airport. However, if one of the key goals of the Ireland 2040 is achieving greater economic balance across regions, then further expansion at Dublin Airport without parallel investment in Cork and Shannon will undermine this.
“The reports about Minister Ross’ submission are also coming just weeks after the budget delivered an increase in the VAT rate for our retail and hospitality sector and when we are merely weeks away from the unknown impact of Brexit on our regional tourism. Dublin is pretty much impervious to all of this yet that’s where growth is being targeted for. This is a major concern.”
“With the growth in services required to achieve 50 million passengers by 2050, it’s hard to see how Shannon, Cork, Knock and other airports are going to be able to compete. If all the services are going into one airport, that’s going to have a knock-on effect on economic growth. This all flies in the face of Ireland 2040.
“It is becoming clear that Minister Ross has no interest in what can be achieved in the regions if their airports grow,” she said.
“If there is a requirement for additional capacity in Dublin, there’s plenty of it already in place at other airports so why not use that rather than spend more than €1billion on lengthening queue congestion in Dublin?
“The potential benefit of spreading this growth across other Irish airports would be enormous for their regions and would be far more positive for the country overall, and for people’s prospects for getting improved work-life-balance by getting out of the Dublin commuter belt.”
by Tom McCullough
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