This article is from page 2 of the 2007-03-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
SENATOR Timmy Dooley’s criti- cism of his own Government’s handling of the Open Skies deal has come in for a hammering from Clare general election candidate and county councillor, Madeleine Taylor- Quinn (FG).
She said it was “nauseating to listen to Senator Timmy Dooley decry the withdrawal of the transatlantic status of Shannon and criticise the minister for transport”.
She added that that “if Senator Dooley feels the Government have let down the people of Clare he should have the moral courage to stand as an independent rather than as one of the
flagbearers of a Government party that has downgraded Shannon”.
Cllr Taylor-Quinn also called for a number of immediate measures to offset any loss of business as a re- sult of the ending of the compulsory Stopover.
These measures include the com- missioning of an independent eco- nomic study to formally assess the economic fallout for the region.
Meanwhile, Shannon Development Chief Executive, Kevin Thompstone, said proposals for Open Skies under- lined the “necessity to accelerate the implementation of the recommenda- tions in the Tourism and Economic Development Plan”.
This was submitted to Government
last year by the Mid-West Regional Authority and regional stakeholders including Shannon Development, the Shannon Airport Authority, IBEC, SIGNAL, chambers of commerce and local authorities.
He said the possible introduction of an Open Skies regime later this year would “pose a unique set of challeng- es for Shannon [International Airport and for the Shannon region and the wider west of Ireland which rely on transatlantic air services to drive in- ward investment and overseas tour- ism in their economies”.
The Open Skies proposal was wel- comed last week at the Irish Hotel Federation’s annual conference. The IHF believe that the deal will see two
million high-spending American tourists come to Ireland on holidays.
The Shannon Airport Authority last week outlined its plans to secure one million transatlantic passengers within five years of the ending of the Stopover.
SW stew-leidsleminymeer-nemeercviPmer-lmeyer-vilce han said that the retention of a year- round service to the United States was achievable with a strong market- ing campaign and a substantial re- duction in the airport’s cost base.
He said the imminent phasing out of the stopover had been prepared for some time. The airport had “built up an extensive range of transatlan- tic services which carried almost 800,000 passengers in 2006”.