asked the Minister for Communications if he proposes to accede to the request by Ryanair to operate on the Cork-London, Shannon-London, Dublin-Manchester, Dublin-Amsterdam and Dublin-Paris routes; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Extension of Ryanair Flights.
8.
In relation to the Cork and Shannon to Luton routes, I understand that my predecessor postponed a decision on the Ryanair applications pending the outcome of current negotiations with the UK on the development of a more liberal bilateral air services agreement. I am awaiting the outcome of those negotiations.
Ryanair applications for approval to operate on the Dublin-Manchester, Amsterdam and Paris routes, were refused last October on the grounds that market conditions did not warrant the introduction of an additional carrier on those routes.
More recently, Ryanair were given approval in principle for services between Dublin and five new European points, namely, Palma, Geneva, Luxembourg, Nice and Stuttgart and between Connacht Horan Airport and three UK points, namely, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. I will be interested in watching the development of services on these routes.
Does the Minister regard it as acceptable that the lowest unrestricted fare on the Dublin-London route is now £95 while the lowest unrestricted fare from both Cork and Shannon to London is £240 and whether this amounts in practice to discrimination against people who would use and airport in the west or in the south as opposed to those who are in a position to use Dublin Airport? Will he take steps by licensing Ryanair, in introducing competition from Cork and Shannon, to reduce the unrestricted fare from those airports to something approximating to Dublin or at least pro rata to Dublin?
The question I was asked was about requests for services, not about fares which is a different question altogether.
The services bring down the fares, as the Minister knows.
I am in support of that and I want to tell the House that as my brief now covers both transport and tourism I will be committed to whatever action I can take in this Department to make fares as low as possible because I want as many tourists as possible into the country this year.
That is great news. Will the Minister now tell us about the other routes mentioned in the question — Dublin-Manchester, Dublin-Amsterdam and Dublin-Paris? I welcome his agreement with the necessity to reduce fares as much as possible but will he not agree that it is ridiculous, for example, that the return fare from Dublin to Liverpool or to Manchester is substantially higher than the return fare from Dublin to London even though London is much further away from Dublin than either Liverpool or Manchester? Since the advent of competition is the only factor which has in recent times caused a reduction in fares will the Minister immediately allow competition on those other routes so that fares will be reduced by the substantial amount by which they were reduced on the London route?
The Deputy has referred to the second paragraph of my reply. Applications were refused last October on the grounds that market conditions did not warrant the introduction of an additional carrier on these routes. I will be looking at this to see if market conditions now warrant the introduction of an additional carrier on these routes. I should like to take the opportunity of telling the House that I spent two hard days helping a past pupil of mine, the present Commissioner, Peter Sutherland, working in the Council of Ministers of Transport in Brussels on the question of a more liberal air transport policy and the reduction of fares, PEX and APEX. We discussed a general liberalising, particularly of fifth freedom rights, in the area of our transport.
Will the Minister agree that it is desirable that in this matter he should learn from his former pupil on the question of air fares rather than vice versa? Does the Minister not realise that the market between Dublin and Paris would be a very different one if somebody was allowed to provide a return fare of £200 as opposed to the present market where the unrestricted fare is in excess of £400? Will the Minister take steps to create a new market to bring many additional people into the country by allowing extra carriers on these routes and creating competition?
I should like to inform the Deputy that despite his omniscience in the matter the Commissioner indicated that he was still learning from me when we were working together on the same objective in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday last.
Not about air fares; it might have been Greek.
We are committed to the same objective and what puts an edge to my interpretation is the fact that I also have the Tourism brief now.
I am glad the Minister is capable of learning and I hope he has learned not to believe everything Deputy O'Malley says about air fares.
Deputy Mitchell learned something from Deputy O'Malley.
I accept there are routes where market conditions will not allow extra carriers but I hope the Minister will take the point that there should be some relationship on the fare per mile basis on all routes. Where he deems it not possible to license additional carriers will the Minister consider introducing a fare regime on a fare per mile basis similar to that on routes where there is competition?
I accept what the Deputy has said. I accept that it will have the same tendency, that the thrust will be the same, to reduce fares. The Commissioner for Competition is extremely reasonable and balanced on this issue. He is not proposing any kind of wild policy on this matter.