Talk of second airport terminal

The Minister for Public Enterprise Ms O'Rourke is due to present an information note to Cabinet on the construction of a second terminal at Dublin Airport by the beginning of October, a spokesman confirmed yesterday.

The spokesman said that the Minister and her officials had several meetings on the issue recently. He said that this had been prompted chiefly by the significant expansion in passenger numbers at the airport in recent years rather than by individual proposals from interested parties.

Should Cabinet approve further consideration of a second terminal, the construction of such a facility will be the subject of an "open and transparent" tender procedure, he said.

State airports operator Aer Rianta declined to comment saying it was a matter for Government.

Fine Gael's spokesman on Public Enterprise, Mr Jim Higgins, has criticised Ms O'Rourke over the delay in her decision to consider a second terminal for Dublin Airport. The decision has come four and a half years too late, Mr Higgins said yesterday.

"For the past four and a half years, Minister O'Rourke as the main shareholder in Aer Rianta has stood idly by as the situation at Dublin Airport has become chaotic, with passenger numbers growing to 14 million per year," he said.

"Dublin Airport must be the only capital city airport in a modern economy which does not have a second terminal. In spite of this, the Minister has repeatedly turned down the Ryanair proposal and has failed to endorse the proposals from other private sources."

Mr Higgins also claimed that by the time planning and construction had been completed, it could take up to five years before a second terminal would open for business.

Aviation entrepreneur Mr Ulick McEvaddy was slightly more optimistic on a time-frame for opening a new airport terminal when he participated in a radio interview on the subject yesterday. Mr McEvaddy said that the terminal that he and his brother, Mr Des McEvaddy were proposing could be operational within three years if it got the go-ahead. He said a second terminal would cost in excess of £100 million (€127 million).

The McEvaddy brothers, who own a strip of land adjacent to Dublin Airport, have repeatedly tried to get approval to build a second terminal there in recent years. The original terminal plans, submitted in 1996, would have cost between £50 and £60 million, Mr McEvaddy said.