Massive queues at Dublin Airport is giving Ireland a “bad reputation” and could end up putting people off visiting the country, according to businessman Declan Ganley.
Passengers have been left fuming as they have been forced to queues for up to two hours in recent weeks.
Over the weekend Dara O'Briain was one of the angry passengers complaining of the poor standards at the airport, saying he faced 'insane queues' and it took him 70 minutes to get through security.
Read more: Dara O’Briain left furious as he slams Dublin Airport as a 'mess'
Mr Ganley spoke to Newstalk saying Dublin Airport puts Ireland 'on the bottom of the run' when it comes to international travel.
He said: “When it is functioning the way it is, it gives a very bad impression, especially when people are trying to leave.
“The arrivals experience is OK but the departures, particularly around sort of busy times, transatlantic flights etc, is a disaster and it puts itself on the bottom rung of international airports.
“It is not somewhere people would want to hub through and it is the sort of airport that is getting a reputation as a place to avoid – which is not a reputation you want to be getting for yourself when you’re running an international airport.”
He said the airport experience could prevent people from visiting Ireland which could be a blow for businesses.
“The thing is Ireland has a fantastic reputation and it has been and is a place that people want to go,” he said.
“So, if you say to people, let’s meet in Ireland; let’s meet in Galway or Dublin, they generally would like to do that – but the airport experience, for somebody that has got a very busy schedule, they don’t want to be spending hours and hours going through airports.
“I know this is a first-world problem and I know it is a problem for the privileged and everything else but you do need operators like that wanting to come to Ireland and spend time here and getting exposed to it because this is what leads to positive decisions being made in terms of where to place investments and where to place jobs etc.”
Mr Ganley believes that transatlantic flights should be moved to places like Cork and Shannon airports to take some of the pressure off Dublin.
“Dublin can’t cope and that’s adding to Dublin Airport’s woes.
“Let’s start to use the airports we have elsewhere in the country and restore Shannon to something like the status it used to have and start using it.
“Otherwise, we’re going lose US immigration there and once we lose it in Shannon we’re never going to get it back.”
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