Re: Re: Airports; how many state subsidised airports are required in Ireland

@Angry Rebel wrote:

1 – Subsidising airports does not have to be a bad thing. Air transport is a vital element of all economic activity (just ask any multinational in the Cork or Shannon region) and forcing those who travel frequently to travel long distances to an airport will just make them move their operations to somewhere they don’t have to do that. The one caveat is that any and all subsidies should be evenly distributed and transparent.

2 – One airport can serve the east of the country because the a significant proportion of the population is concentrated in one relatively compact area (ie a million plus in one city). The obvious problems aside, the infrastructure is more developed in the East than the West of the country.

3 – Have you ever flown from Cork to Dublin? I doubt it judging from your comments. Ryanair and Aer Arann have significant capacity on the route, did you ever think to ask why? Substantial business traffic travels that route on day trips and wouldn’t be able to do it going to and from Shannon or any other airport. Current times allow a business person to have a 3 hour meeting in Dublin in the morning and be back in the office in Cork by 2.30 for the rest of the day. Believe me, that frys Dublin peoples brains. They think Cork is somewhere near Uganda, and without an airport is may as well be.

4 – Railways are a good way of connecting people to major transport hubs. BUT, they are not a magic bullet as not everyone gets or would get the train to an airport. Do you really expect someone from Dunmanway or Bantry to drive for an hour, leave the car and take a train for another hour? Ridiculous.

5 – “Hundreds of millions” would not be saved. Capital costs aside, state airports do not costs anything like that, and in fact generate and contribute to significant levels of economic activity. The “cost” of an airport, port, railway or any major piece of infrastructure is only one side of the equation.

this is ridiculous, this country is miniscule , the only reason people are actually considering intra state flying is because everything on the ground is fucking shite.

subsidizing things is just plain bad, and not always a productive way to do things. It should only be used as a last resort.

Had the dublin /cork rail line been upgraded , the point to point travel time would be a little over an hour.

On your point 4 yes i think you could get every one in the cork area to drive to the local train station . why not ?
build a long term car park in cork limerick and galway.
But even if you don’t agreee well if some decent roads were in plave then it would not matter.

finally dublin is not particularly concentrated at all with thousands littered up to drogheda down through wicklow and in to naas.

if all these local airstrip can make due without a trip to the money trough then that is wonderfull but they should not be part of the bigger plan