merrion street

The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross T.D. today announced €3.6 million in grant aid towards the operating costs of the regional airports in Donegal, Ireland West Airport Knock and Kerry.
“Today’s allocations are on top of capital grants of more than €1.9 million which have already been disbursed to these airports bringing the total grant funding this year under the Regional Airports Programme to €5.5 million” the Minister said.
The Regional Airports Programme supports necessary safety and security investments and activities by these airports to enable them to continue to contribute to enhanced regional connectivity for businesses and tourism. The Review of the Capital Plan that was announced in September by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform identified the need for continued support for this Programme – Minister Ross said “The review of the Capital Plan yielded over €17 million in additional capital funding for the Regional Airports Programme over the period 2019 to 2021, considerably in excess of the €10 million in extra funding that was originally mooted in the Programme for Government”
Speaking today, Minister Ross also said that he had updated the Government on the renewed financial difficulties being faced by Waterford Airport. Despite the best efforts of the airport authorities to secure a carrier, there have been no passenger air services at Waterford Airport for the past year and a half.
Minister Ross said that his Department will engage consultants in early January to urgently undertake a review of the options for Waterford Airport and, in the meantime, the Department will provide a sum of €375,000 in January to the Airport to safeguard the Coast Guard Search and Rescue service for the first six months of 2018.
‘As an exceptional measure, given current circumstances, I am providing some breathing space to allow time for an evaluation of the future of the Airport and to ensure that the important work of the Search and Rescue service can continue’ the Minister said.


The operational grants announced today to each of the airports are as follows:
Airport Grant Allocation (€)
Donegal 667,900
IWAK 1,868,400
Kerry 1,075,500