Vol. 509 No. 4
121 Mr. Yates asked the Minister for Public Enterprise the record, if any, her Department has of any allegations ever having been made in reference to the granting of aviation rights to Ryanair on the routes to Liverpool, Stansted and Munich from Dublin Airport in the 1989 to 1999 period. [20631/99]
In September 1989, the then Minister for Tourism and Transport announced a new policy for Irish aviation, known as the "two airline policy". The Minister granted exclusive rights to Ryanair to operate from Ireland to Luton and Stansted and from Dublin to Liverpool and Munich. At the same time, exclusive rights were granted to Aer Lingus to operate from Ireland to Heathrow and Gatwick and from Dublin to Manchester and Paris. These rights were granted for a finite period of three years to the end of 1992, i.e. in the run up to the liberalisation of the EU air transport market.
I am not certain what precisely the Deputy is seeking in his question. The records on file over the period while the two airline policy was in existence reflect criticisms of the policy from a number of perspectives, as might be expected in the case of any significant change of policy. All of these criticisms were in the public domain at the time.
The above is based on review of the principal relevant files. To determine whether there is any data on other files would involve examination of a considerable number of records in my Department. If the Deputy wishes to pursue the matter further, it would be helpful and would narrow down the search considerably if he would be more specific about what he has in mind.
