Cullen deepens Cabinet rift over terminal

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen has rubbished the Progressive Democrats’ preferred option for the development of a second terminal at Dublin Airport, laying bare the depth of the division between the Government partners on the issue.

Despite the parties insisting they were inching closer to an agreement in recent weeks, it now appears there is an impasse at Cabinet level that could develop into a full-blown crisis, with passengers the victims as the second terminal is delayed further and further.

Fianna Fáil wants the State-owned Dublin Airport Authority to manage the second terminal, but the PDs have insisted it has to be independently run to ensure competition.

But speaking in the Dáil yesterday, Mr Cullen said the only place a competing terminal had been tried was in Toronto, where it had been “an abject failure, with charges being four times higher in the privately-run facility, and the state eventually buying it back” at an “exorbitant” cost.

“There are no examples of competing terminals and I am concerned about how this would work when it does not anywhere else in the world,” he added.

“The airport should be in State hands. I have not seen evidence from any other country to suggest otherwise and I want to progress on this basis.”

Speaking in Kilkenny last night, Tánaiste and PD leader Mary Harney said she didn’t think “it would be helpful” to comment on Mr Cullen’s remarks.

“I won’t make any comment which might take the focus away from finding a solution here,” she said. “We have to all apply our minds to finding a solution which will deliver a more efficient, more effective operation at Dublin Airport.

“It is certainly what those who use the airport want.”

But responding to Mr Cullen’s assertion that a privately-run second terminal would be a mistake, PD transport spokesman Tom Morrissey said: “The current model is also an abject failure, as is evidenced by every passenger who walks through the airport.”

He said the PDs are looking for a framework that was “more efficient and better than the current model. We are unashamedly expressing a vested interest on behalf of the consumers.”

Asked if the junior coalition partner was losing the battle over the terminal, he responded: “I am confident... that there is no final outcome yet on the table.”

But the Labour Party said Mr Cullen’s admission that a competing terminal was a flawed concept showed “just how much time and attention has been wasted on PD pandering”.

Party spokeswoman Roisín Shortall said: “The travelling public need to realise that while they wait in ever-lengthening check-in queues, the decision on increasing capacity at Dublin Airport is being held up by a meaningless lovers’ tiff between Fianna Fáil and the PDs at Cabinet level.”