The government has hired Deloitte, the consultancy, to assess the feasibility of Ryanair’s proposal to bring in 4m extra passengers into Ireland in exchange for massive reductions in airport charges.
A spokesman for Leo Varadkar confirmed that the transport and tourism minister had already received a draft copy of the Deloitte report and was assessing the various options it had suggested.
“Deloitte have presented the minister with a draft report on ways for extra tourists to be brought into the country,” said the spokesman. A political source believed it was unlikely the report would be published because it contained “commercially sensitive material”.
Ryanair has written to Dublin Airport Authority, which controls Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports, and the government, offering to bring in the extra passengers over a five-year period in return for huge cuts in charges.
Deloitte is understood to have met the DAA and discussed the ramifications for the authority of charge reductions. The DAA has debts of €800m, and charges rose by about 40% over the past year.
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The government recently axed the €3 tourist tax, but said that it would seek passenger growth from the airlines in return.