Taoiseach criticises Dublin Airport bosses for 'changing their story' and says Cork should be used more
It has emerged that Dalton Phillips flew out of Dublin Airport over the weekend as thousands of passengers faced queuing chaos. Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos
Taoiseach Micheàl Martin has severely criticised the Dublin Airport Authority (daa) at a private meeting of his party for “changing their story” in the past few weeks.
Early exchanges at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party were dominated by the chaos and delays at Dublin Airport, with sources saying the Taoiseach is very annoyed.
Airport bosses today issued a plan to minimise disruption to passengers over the June bank holiday weekend, but Fianna Fáil members remain angry at recent delays that left hundreds of people missing out on flights.
One source told the : “The Taoiseach is not happy re: Daa, he says they’ve changed their stories in the past few weeks.”
Mr Martin said Cork Airport should be used more in light of the pressures on Dublin during the peak summer period.
At the meeting, there were also calls for Dublin Airport Authority boss Dalton Philips to be fired.
Kilkenny TD John McGuinness said Mr Dalton “should be sacked" following a disastrous situation which led to over 1,000 passengers missing flights last weekend due to long queues for check-in and security at the airport.
Mr McGuinness, who is chair of the Oireachtas Finance Committee, also said the issue of delays in getting passports is a failure of the government for which Fianna Fáil is being blamed.
“Politicians should take control and manage these issues,” he told the meeting.
Mr McGuinness asked Taoiseach Micheál Martin if there will be a review of the government's overall performance before they are asked to vote for Leo Varadkar to become Taoiseach in December.
The CEO of Daa used the airport’s private check-in service when flying to Saudi Arabia last weekend, but denied it was a move to avoid massive queues at Dublin Airport.
Dalton Phillips told the Oireachtas Transport Committee he had used the €295 Platinum Services facility which was charged to his travel budget as CEO. He told the committee that his journey had taken an hour and he had used the chauffeur service to get to his flight.
It had emerged that Mr Philips flew out of Dublin Airport over the weekend as thousands of passengers faced queuing chaos.
Mr Philips flew out of the airport on Saturday night as part of a Daa team to attend meetings in Saudi Arabia.
Sinn Féin senator Lynn Boylan pressed Mr Phillips on whether he had used Platinum Services to avoid the queues which led to 1,000 people missing their flights.
"Categorically not," he said.
"I certainly wouldn't have gone to the Middle East if I'd known this was happening."
Mr Phillips said that he had flown to Saudi Arabia as Daa runs the airport at Jeddah but had turned around as soon as he heard of problems at Dublin.
He said he “could have avoided hassle” had he not flown to Saudi Arabia.
Earlier, a spokesperson for the Daa told the Irish Daily Mail that Mr Philips was "en route to scheduled meetings with our Daa international customers in Saudi on Sunday when he turned back when events at Dublin Airport became apparent".
While the chaos at the airport came to a head on Sunday, passengers were already reporting long delays on Saturday. It is not clear at what stage over the weekend Mr Philips arrived back in Dublin.
Senior management at the Daa, including Mr Philips, have been called before the Oireachtas Transport Committee today to explain what went wrong last Sunday when 1,400 passengers missed their flights.
Staffing shortages have been blamed for the chaotic scenes and long queues experienced last weekend. Committee Chair, Kieran O'Donnell, says they will be seeking complete assurance that this bank holiday weekend and the summer season will be different.
"We will be seeking guarantees, we will be asking the direct question of Dalton Philips and his management colleagues as to precisely what measures they are putting in place," said Mr O'Donnell.
"In simple layman's terms, what happened over the weekend was they didn't have enough lanes open in either of the two terminals and not enough staff on duty to deal with the volume of passengers which they should have known."
Independent Senator and committee member, Gerard Craughwell, said a review of the airport's terms of employment is needed. He has called for a 'root and branch' review of the terms and conditions of employment that are being offered to workers as he said they are "clearly not good enough" to attract people.
Mr Craughwell said:
"Clearly they did not think a lot of maintaining their security people."
The situation at the airport is a mess, said Mr Craughwell, adding that it is unbelievable that guarantees that the upcoming bank holiday weekend will not be a disaster cannot be given.
"We are coming into the biggest bank holiday of the year and we cannot be sure that we will get people out of the airport on time.
"Already we have 1,000 people who will be making a claim against the Daa for loss of flights, loss of hotel accommodation, loss of theatre tickets and god knows what else."
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