Madam, - Recent coverage of the Aer Rianta board's profligate wasting of taxpayers' money on free Mercs and Cartier perks highlighted what Ryanair has been saying for years about the abject failure and abuse of taxpayers' money at the Aer Rianta monopoly.
The Aer Rianta board delivered a regime at Dublin Airport which the Aviation Regulator previously confirmed was "50 percent more inefficient than the best of its peers".
Airport charges doubled as profits collapsed from almost €40 million in 1994 to just €20 million in 2003.
Hundreds of millions of euro were wasted on facilities that airlines didn't want and customers don't use at Dublin and Cork Airport.
The authority sued its own regulator, costing millions in legal fees footed by Irish taxpayers.
It spent €140 million gold-plating Cork airport to achieve what a similar-sized airport in Germany achieved for €11 million.
It was responsible for third-rate, third-world facilities at Dublin airport, ridiculous queues and car-parks that are miles away from the terminal building.
Aer Rianta stood idly by and failed to implement its own contingency plan, while Ireland's main international airport was closed on two separate occasions earlier this year.
Its major contribution to Shannon has been to pollute the estuary for many years with raw sewage.
The demise of the failed and discredited Aer Rianta monopoly will not be enough to kick-start Irish tourism and neither will a plan by Dublin Airport Authority for a €130 million "Cartier" runway at Dublin Airport. We don't need it. London's Gatwick Airport has one runway for 30 million passengers a year (almost twice as many as Dublin Airport). What Dublin Airport urgently needs, and what customer airlines and the entire tourism and hospitality sector are calling for, is competing independent terminals at Dublin Airport.
Why won't Bertie Ahern's Government urgently implement the development of second and third competing terminals at Dublin? It has been two years since the Government received 13 separate expressions of interest for competing terminals without any progress. This was and is a key commitment in the present coalition's Programme for Government.
A second (or third) competing terminal would create a minimum of 5,000 new jobs at Irish airports. If a low-cost terminal is built, Ryanair will base another 10 new aircraft in Dublin; will open a range of new low-fares routes from Europe into Ireland and will deliver an additional 5 million passengers annually for Irish tourism.
All Aer Rianta ever achieved was to protect its monopoly, double prices, waste taxpayers' money, damage Irish tourism and deliver abysmal service to customers. - Yours, etc.,
PAUL FITZSIMMONS,
Head of Communications,
Ryanair,
Dublin Airport.