A radical plan forecast to bring an additional 750,000 passengers to Shannon Airport was announced in Limerick yesterday by Mr Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair. He emphasised, however, that it was contingent upon getting Government support for his company's low-cost proposals for Dublin Airport, including a £12 million terminal. "That is the bottom line" he said.

The proposals were outlined to members of the Limerick Chamber of Commerce and other interested groups in the mid-west.

The plan includes basing three Boeing 737 aircraft at Shannon and creating 150 jobs, opening five new routes direct from Shannon to London, the UK and the Continent. This, he said, would develop Shannon as a gateway to the UK and the Continent for tourism to the west of Ireland. Mr O'Leary said it would "kickstart a £250 million (€317.4 million) tourism spend into the regional economy.

"If rejected by the Government, there will be no deal. We will just continue to develop out of the UK to Europe, and Shannon and Dublin will be the losers", he said.

Ryanair, with 5.7 million passengers, was already the second biggest carrier next to British Airways out of Britain, he added. "Shannon has been struggling for some years due to the failure of Aer Rianta's Dublin management. The Celtic tiger has passed Shannon by."

He said that, since 1991, traffic at Cork airport had increased by 104 per cent and by up to 120 per cent at Dublin, but only by 19 per cent at Shannon. This figure was distorted, however, by "artificial stopover" and transit passengers who contribute nothing to the local economies. He said that Aer Rianta's £40 million terminal at Shannon would not deliver traffic growth or benefit the local economy. The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, is currently awaiting a report from consultants on the future of Aer Rianta and the State airports. A spokesman for the Minister welcomed any proposal to fly more routes from Shannon.

However, he said there were a number of proposals in relation to airport facilities before the Minister at the moment and no decision would be made before the consultants' report was received.

Any decision to build a new terminal in Dublin would require a full competition through a tendering process to give anyone interested in building such a facility an opportunity to put their case, he said.