Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has ordered a full report from the Irish Aviation Authority on how Dublin Airport’s radar system malfunctioned causing severe disruption to thousands of passengers.
Mr Dempsey told the Dáil this morning that the five-year-old air traffic control system cost €115 million and that a back-up system - if one was in place - would cost a similar amount.
“Anything that affects the country’s air transport system can put passengers’ safety at risk so the IAA must be certain the software is fully functioning before the airport is allowed to return to full capacity,” Mr Dempsey said.
The IAA is operating the system at 70 per cent capacity today and hopes to return to full operations later.
“I don’t understand how you could have software for five years and then suddenly something goes wrong with it… I’m not a technical person to know that but this appears to have what happened here,” Mr Dempsey added.
He said information should have been “more forthcoming” to passengers and “passengers should have known the length or the possibility of the length of the delay.”
