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Statements by Our Candidates in the 2005 Elections

Eamonn McCann

Local Election

Monday 18th April 2005

I am standing in Waterside Rural to raise all the issues which are common to communities across the wider constituency. And I specifically want to highlight the issue of the Ryanair runway.

The House of Commons report published last week showed that the figures the council and the airport management have been working on are "heavily dependent on the establishment of additional services by Ryanair." In other words, it's the business plans of Ryanair, not the economic development of the Derry area, which is dictating what happens at the airport.

And the council has no control whatsoever over Ryanair's business decisions. 

The report also declares that the council's analysis "appears to rely heavily on assumptions in terms of route developments and load factors."

Put crudely, their projections have no scientific basis. They are just assumptions. And it is proposed that local families be evicted and their homes flattened on this basis!

Over the past few years, Derry people have been deluged with figures from the council and airport management supposed to "prove" that the airport is contributing X pounds in cross-border revenue per year. Local residents and the SEA have repeatedly questioned the basis of this argument. We were right. We now discover through the Commons Report that "there appears to be no recent data to quantify the number of travellers from the Republic using the airport."

They don't even have the crude figures for the number of people from across the border using the airport. This statistic shouldn't be too difficult to find. It probably could be pulled from computer passenger records. But the council and the management told the Commons Committee that they don't have the data!

Either they are totally incompetent or they knew that the figures wouldn't back up their case.

The fact that there has been no meaningful debate on any of these matters at council level shows the dire need for new blood on the council after May 5th. We need representation for parties which put real issues at the forefront and not the name of the city or whose turn it is to be mayor. 

SEA councillors would move at their first council meeting to have a speedy review of the entire airport operation, and a real debate on whether a far higher priority should be put on modernising our rail link rather than providing Ryanair with a publicly-funded facility which would definitely be of benefit to them but of very dubious benefit to local people.

The airport issue illustrates the way the main parties, behind all the usual argy-bargy, are at one in bowing down before big business. They have no vision of their own. They are mesmerised by Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary, like school-children in the presence of a pop-star.

The SEA will be returning to the airport and transport policy throughout the campaign. This issue has ramifications for the protection of the environment, for council transparency and democracy, for rates, taxation and public spending policy. It also has implications for one of the biggest problems facing the city ­ unemployment. The threatened evictions also raise fundamental questions about the rights of individuals in the face of government policy---local or national. This is particularly important when there is good ground for believing that the policy is designed to meet the needs of powerful vested interests.





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