The Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, was in the House yesterday talking about the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026. The discussion suggested that removing the cap for our national airport would have a detrimental effect on a lot of our regional airports. The Minister made a very good point that it would increase capacity in our areas and the numbers are showing that already, and hopefully will continue to do so.

While the Minister was in the Chamber, a press release came out that €2.3 million had been approved and spent through the Government's regional airports programme on the delivery of a state-of-the-art aerodrome for fire service training at Ireland West Airport Knock. It is an important investment in infrastructure in the west and a vote of confidence in that particular facility. I have often raised the issue of being proactive with our fire services. Recently, we had the housing infrastructure investment fund, which in all our counties was set to unlock between 700, 900 and 1,500 houses, yet we will wait for a lot of those houses to be delivered before we start reacting to what other services we need to deliver on the ground.

I hope counties in the west of Ireland might be able to utilise the state-of-the-art training facility at Knock Airport to upskill the members of our fire services across the region. I also hope we will be proactive in the delivery of new fire services when it comes to both personnel and new fire stations. That includes restoring old fire stations which closed in the past. I refer to those stations in Acting Leader’s area of Ballinasloe and my area of Castlerea. The opportunity is now. We are creating and unlocking the potential for housing, but we need to be a lot more proactive in the delivery of the supporting services.