Taoiseach promises comprehensive plan to address aviation crisis

Mr Martin said he was due to meet with Aer Lingus on Thursday and said there is a necessity to restore travel and aviation.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he will bring a comprehensive plan to Cabinet next week to address the travel and aviation crisis.

Speaking at his weekly parliamentary party meeting, Mr Martin was responding to sharp criticism from TDs following the decision of Aer Lingus to pull out of Shannon Airport.

Clare Senator Timmy Dooley was scathing in his criticism of Transport Minister Eamon Ryan’s department’s failure to engage with the aviation sector and called on the Taoiseach to “take control of this difficult situation”.

Cork East TD James O’Connor also hit out at the failure to engage with the aviation sector.

In response, Mr Martin said he was due to meet with Aer Lingus on Thursday and said there is a necessity to restore travel and aviation.

He told his colleagues that next week there will be a comprehensive statement on travel, aviation, entertainment, sport and mandatory hotel quarantine as part of the next phase of reopening for June and July.

Mandatory hotel quarantine

There is “substantive work” on the evaluation of mandatory hotel quarantine, which will see most EU countries taken off the list of countries who need to isolate.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin was responding to sharp criticism from TDs following the decision of Aer Lingus to pull out of Shannon Airport

Mr Martin said the EU digital certificate provides a framework to get travel back. We are in a different space with vaccination and as a small open economy aviation is really important, he said.

“There will need to be an effective rebooting of aviation and we will engage with the airlines and airports. This is crucial to tourism and economic growth of all regions in the country,” he added.

Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath voiced his disappointment at the decision of Aer Lingus to withdraw from Shannon, saying there was literally no demand made by the airline that was not met.

Cyber attack 'immoral'

On the issue of the cyberattack on the HSE, Mr Martin said the attack is significant and extremely serious. “This is base, immoral criminal activity,” he said.

The party meeting heard that the country hit around 280,000 vaccines over the past week and should hit a million vaccines in the month of May.

The Taoiseach also said housing is the social issue of this generation. Fianna Fáil has a long-standing commitment to build social and affordable homes and fulfil people’s aspirations of owning their own home, he added.

“We are approaching housing like Brexit and Covid and all hands are on deck. We must get supply up. We want to get supply up to 40k a year over the next decade. We need all areas of public and private sector to drive on supply,” he said.

Mr Martin said Sinn Féin’s housing policy is naked on detail and would exacerbate supply. Their policy would reduce supply and is against any private sector delivery of homes.

On the middle east, he said the recent bombing of Gaza has been wholly disproportionate and the violence is appalling where innocent civilians, children and families are being bombed.

“We are calling on all sides to allow for a ceasefire and are articulating this at EU council level and the UN Security Council,” he said.

Crossing the political rubicon

Meanwhile, housing dominated the Fine Gael meeting as Fianna Fáil Minister Darragh O'Brien "crossed the political rubicon" to address the party on the issue.

Despite some suggestion that the meeting would see Mr O'Brien excoriated for the Government's record, he was well received. Former justice minister Charlie Flanagan said that he regretted that the appearance was "portrayed as adversarial when it is absolutely constructive".

Cork-based senator Tim Lombard said that AirBnBs were "soaking up rentals" in west Cork and it was "becoming a huge issue in rural Ireland". He suggested that there could be grants for the building of hotels in rural areas. He said that "AirBnB does nothing for the society". His Seanad colleague John Cummins said that moves to "rightsize" had.

Leo Varadkar sent an email to the Fine Gael party this evening to update them, in which he wrote: "I think we will need to re-examine the role of Approved Housing Bodies and Local Authorities which will continue to be allowed to bulk buy housing estates, look again (at a) vacant home tax and examine long-term lease arrangements where the asset does not revert to state or occupant at the end of the lease."