The Minister for Transport has appointed the Dublin Airport Authority to operate the new Terminal 2.
In a statement today, Noel Dempsey said DAA must operate the terminal within cost guidelines set by the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR).
He said he has now ended the procurement process relating to the terminal.
“As Minister, I was keen to pursue the option of a competition for the operation of facility management services in Terminal 2 as a way of achieving efficiencies in the terminal and across airport operations generally,” he said.
“While every effort was made to design a workable process, unfortunately the market did not respond as hoped. There was no choice but to terminate the procurement process last December. None of the candidates had met the minimum requirements for pre-qualification and I had no option but to terminate the procurement process. ”
The new terminal is due to open towards the end of this year with a capacity of 15 million passengers.
The CAR increased the maximum amount the DAA can charge each passenger from the current price cap of €7.39 to €9.32 next year if Terminal 2 is completed by November 1st, 2010. If this condition is not met, the price cap for the year will be €8.93 a passenger.
In 2011, the maximum airport charge will rise to €10.44 – a jump of more than 40 per cent from the current level – provided the second terminal is in operation.
The CAR’s decision was based on allowing the DAA to recoup the €609 million cost of building the new Terminal 2 and followed a direction from Mr Dempsey.
Ryanair this evening reacted angrily to the decision and called for the Department of Transport to be disbanded.
“Today’s decision to award the DAA monopoly the contract to operate T2 comes as no surprise from a Minister and Department which last November ordered the independent Aviation Regulator to rubber-stamp a 40 per cent cost increase to enable the DAA to pay for this T2 white elephant,” chief executive Michael O’Leary said.
Fine Gael’s transport spokesman Fergus O’Dowd accused Mr Dempsey of “squandering taxpayers’ money on a competition in which the dice were loaded in favour of the DAA from the start”.
He claimed it was “yet another example of a State monopoly blocking any competition”.