Cork Airport is due to close for ten weeks for essential runway repairs between 12 September and 22 November. Having kept workers on the payroll throughout 16 months of the pandemic, Aer Lingus has announced plans to temporarily lay off 200 workers for the duration of the repair work. Other airport employers may take similar actions. The workers are opposed to this plan. They want to be kept on the company books and I support them in this aim. This issue is already prominent in Cork. If left unresolved for much longer, it will become an issue of quite major significance and profile locally, including in the constituency of the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

Aer Lingus and other employers at the airport are in receipt of considerable State supports related to the pandemic. For example, Aer Lingus is in talks with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, having secured €150 million in debt funding to date. According to last Sunday's Business Post, the airports at Cork, Dublin and Shannon are to receive a combined €20 million in funding before 19 July.

There is also the question of the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS. Last week, the CEO of Aer Lingus, Lynne Embleton, told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications that, at the time the lay-offs were announced, there had been no work in Cork Airport for a period and that this is what lay-offs and closures are there to accommodate. She also said that, at the time of the decision to announce the lay-offs, there was uncertainty around the EWSS, its continuation and what form any continuation would take. There is no uncertainty around the EWSS now. There is no uncertainty about its continuance or what form that continuance will take. The EWSS will continue until 31 December and will be in place for the entirety of the period for which Cork Airport is to be shut.

Does the Tánaiste believe it is appropriate for an employer which has been in receipt of the EWSS since its inception, in addition to other State supports, to take workers off the company books while continuing to be part of the scheme and continuing to negotiate for other supports? As a representative of the State that is providing these supports, is the Tánaiste prepared to voice support for these workers and to indicate support for their very modest and reasonable ask that they be kept on the company books while these repairs take place?

It is welcome that works are to be carried out on the runway of Cork Airport. This is a necessary investment in the airport. For obvious reasons, it is probably the right time to do it given that the level of air travel has reduced so much because of the pandemic. It is welcome that this work is taking place.

As the Deputy pointed out, the aviation sector has received a lot of financial support from the Government and the taxpayer. It is now running close to €500 million. This includes employment wage subsidies to the airlines, loans, wage subsidies for the airport, direct grants to all of the airports except Dublin Airport and funding for marketing supports. Anything that is happening with regard to Aer Lingus's employees in Cork Airport is an industrial relations matter and, therefore, principally a matter for the employer and its staff. It is a matter for the company and the unions and it is for them to engage.

I do not know enough about the dispute to comment on it definitively. That is why I need to be limited in what I say. However, if it is possible for Aer Lingus to keep those staff members on the payroll using the wage subsidy scheme, it would certainly make sense to do so. They might be on a reduced income but at least they would still be on the payroll and would still be connected to the company. It might not be that simple. The Deputy will now what happened with the base at Shannon, for example. When we discussed this with Aer Lingus and when it spoke publicly to others, the company made it very clear that it would have closed the base in any case, even if there had not been a pandemic. There were other reasons. It needed to restructure, reform and modernise the business. I do not know if that is a factor here or not. I encourage the employer to engage with the employees. I encourage Aer Lingus to talk to the union and see what can be worked out.

I want to say a word about Shannon. Today, 1 July, is when the official closure and associated redundancies kick in. Within Aer Lingus nationally, workers are facing the threat of a five-year pay freeze, pay cuts, cuts to starting rates, deep cuts to the sick pay scheme and to duty allowances, and so on. This is clearly a reason for workers not wanting to be taken off the books. The company cannot legally change the terms and conditions while they are off the books but it can use the fact that workers are off the books to strengthen its bargaining position and to try to push through changes of that kind. Workers in Cork Airport, not only Aer Lingus workers but all workers at the airport, find it incredible that Deputies Micheál Martin, Coveney and Michael McGrath, and the Tánaiste as a representative of the Government, are not prepared to go beyond a pious wish and apply pressure to the airport employers on this issue. This issue is not going to go away. If anything, it is going to grow louder as we move towards September.

All of us in this House appreciate that the aviation sector is facing a very difficult period. It was booming before the pandemic but that has fundamentally changed. The pandemic has led to a dramatic reduction in air travel. It may be a very long time before it recovers because this pandemic will affect parts of the world for years. That will have an impact on air travel. I also believe that the adoption of new technologies such as videoconferencing will mean that there will be much less business travel in the years ahead. Business travel is the most profitable area of air travel. This means that we may see fewer routes and fewer people travelling for quite some time.

There is also the impact of climate change, to which aviation contributes. I understand that it is the policy of Deputy Barry's party, or, if not his, one of the other far-left parties, to nationalise the airlines again and wind them down as part of the response to climate change. I am not sure the Deputy tells that to the workers in Shannon or Cork but that is the policy of some on the far left and some who describe themselves as eco-socialists.

On this issue, it is important that engagement happens between the company and the union.