A NEW £20 million headquarters for the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) is to be located at Ballycasey in Shannon town. It will become the new home for the aviation authority staff from the Shannon Aeradio communications centre at Ballygireen, near Newmarket on Fergus.
Shannon is also to become the location for a new national training centre for air traffic controllers.
Details of the projects will be revealed on Monday when the Minister of State at the Office of Public Works, Mr Emmet Stagg, will officially open the 11,000 square foot training and consultancy centre, which was set up by the authority at the Shannon Free Zone in May.
The IAA move of the air traffic controllers' training headquarters to Shannon will signal the development of a new system of training for controllers.
An IAA spokesman said a cadet system, similar to the training programme used in Britain, would be used in the school. It is understood the programme will replace the system under which staff entered as air traffic assistants and then worked their way up to controller status.
However, the new centre will not result in an increase in the number of controllers employed at Shannon. While air traffic movements have expanded in recent years, there would be no major increase in numbers planned in the immediate future, the IAA spokesman said.
With more than 200 working at the airport and 111 at Ballygireen, the IAA has more than half of 609 staff working in Clare where it generates 80 per cent of its revenues of £50 million a year.
The remaining staff are located at the authority's Dublin headquarters, Dublin Airport and Cork Airport.