Madam, - Your Editorial of November 22nd correctly describes the reduction in visitors from Britain as a "worrying development". Its primary cause is the increasing range of low-fare flights available from British airports to continental Europe on Ryanair and other low-fare airlines which have been expanding rapidly in the UK while ignoring Ireland.
These European routes and services have been offered to the Irish Government each year for the past seven years in return for a low-cost, competing second terminal at Dublin Airport, but for seven years now the Government has failed to make a decision. It is two-and-a-half years since Bertie Ahern's Government was elected on a promise to develop a low-cost terminal at Dublin Airport within 12 months. It is over two years since it received 13 proposals to develop a competing second terminal at no cost to the taxpayer. It is 12 months since the Government's own Tourism Review Strategy Group recommended the construction of a low-cost terminal at Dublin Airport. Yet still we wait, still Bertie fiddles while Irish tourism burns.
The future of Irish tourism depends on high-frequency, low-fare routes between Ireland and Europe. Ryanair has offered to base 10 aircraft in Dublin, open 20 new routes and guarantee - yes, guarantee - the delivery of 5 million additional passengers each year. Isn't it time this Government finally made a decision, and permitted the development of a low-cost terminal at Dublin? - Yours, etc.,
PAUL FITZSIMMONS, Head of Communications, Ryanair, Dublin Airport.