‘Clear now’ too many Dublin Airport staff laid off during pandemic, Eamon Ryan tells Dáil

Too many Dublin Airport staff were let go during the Covid-19 pandemic and that is “clear now”, the Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has said.

Mr Ryan reiterated that DAA cannot guarantee the chaotic scenes witnessed at the airport last weekend would not be repeated again while also warned against passengers showing up too early for flights.

There are over 200,000 passengers expected to go through the airport over the next four days while the situation remains “very tight”, the Green Party leader said.

Mr Ryan was responding to Sinn Féin deputy leader Pearse Doherty during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Thursday, who said the “crazy scenes” at the airport last weekend was “a national embarrassment”.

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[ Dublin Airport: ‘Holding areas’ to be used in busy periods only as 250,000 passengers expected this weekend ]

Mr Doherty said DAA, which operates Dublin Airport, had laid off 1,000 workers over the course of the pandemic and that the Government had “sanctioned this level of redundancy”.

The Donegal TD said he was “not convinced” by what DAA had laid out at the Oireachtas Transport Committee on Wednesday and that wait times they were setting out were “still far too long”.

Mr Doherty asked if “heads will roll” unless “things were put proper” at the airport and passengers would have speedy access through it.

In response, Mr Ryan said what happened at the airport, whereby over 1,400 passengers missed their flight due to long queues on Sunday, was “totally unacceptable” and that “mistakes were made” in terms of rostering staff.

He said he and the Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton had been meeting with airport authorities every day and that DAA “can’t guarantee” long queues would not be witnessed again. “But we’re going to make sure that every single thing is done to avoid it,” he added.

Mr Ryan said 225 new staff were being put in place and that DAA had promised to hire a further 100 staff.

“We will do whatever we can in Government to support them to avoid that eventuality,” he said.

“They [the DAA] also made a mistake, I think it was in May 2020, when the original decision was made to apply the redundancy scheme - too many workers were let off, that is clear now.”

[ What are the alternatives to using Dublin Airport? ]

Mr Ryan said Thursday morning had been “difficult” at the airport as a lot of people were arriving too early and urged passengers to follow the relevant advice.

He said he was confident that issues at the airport would be resolved this weekend and over the summer period and if they were not “then we’ll have to take further measures”.

“There will be nothing avoided in terms of making sure Irish passengers don’t have that uncertainty, that huge stress,” he said.

Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy said the redundancy scheme announced by DAA during the pandemic was “a gun to the head kind of programme”.

“It was obvious that some organisations used the pandemic to cover for both as a restructure and to reduce costs and Dublin Airport Authority falls into that category,” she said.