As good a reason as any to bury Shannon

Think of it STTG, if only Sarsfield had taken up the offer from the just arrived French Navy & Army re-inforcements to tell the English stick the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, get back in the fight and kick them out of Munster (at least for a few generations) we would have a far more confident outlook and rebellious, rather than downtrodden, spirit.

The price of honour ! Now we're paying for it to our own "leaders"

Oh!, to be wolfing down a pecher of Bordeaux while seeing Ministre Willie deDee and Pierre La Powah on the stocks, pelted with rotten vegetables and fruit while being cackled at by ould wans knittting "Allez les Rouges" scarves for sale outside Stade Thomond.

The worst thing about being Irish is that we were ruled by England for 500 years, and learned to keep a "Stiff upper lip": However if we had been ruled by the French we would be on the streets in revolt, and throw the useless idiots out of government; and maybe chop off their heads.
OK. I know the French Queen said Let them eat cake, but she lost her head for her trouble. Still a good slice of humble pie would not go a miss.

I'm only surprised they hadn't given the Parish Priest the keys of a bulldozer to kick-off the project, but maybe that's old hat and they can drag the normally reserved and camera shy Mammy O'Rourke to plant the first shovel.

Dublin doesn't need a "relief" airport in Offaly. If they (and they usually don't) want to use an alternative airport they would go to Belfast City by motorway or rail-link rather than any Biffo Cowen International creation. With Dublin Airport 90 km away, it wouldn't prove a viable alternative given the fact Dublin is in the process of developing a second runway on site. So the relief for traffic will be addressed more quickly than a new airfield can be built in Clara. At the other end of the N6, Galway Airport is already struggling to attract business. How would placing a third Airport on a stretch of road (to be entirely of m/way standard within 2 years) of only 180km long and such obvious population imbalances be possibly viable ?. It also begs the the wisdom of placing an airport in a place with no large discernible urban centres, unless Mammy and the nephews have been filling the heads of the people of Athlone with more b-s than usual.

Money would be wasted on a frivolous politically inspired (i.e. brainless) project such as this rather than enhanced road and rail infrastructure which would be more beneficial both regionally and nationally. A Northern link road from the M7 from Naas - Enfield - Navan to the M1 at Drogheda to help north-south traffic avoid Dublin's M50 comes to mind, or a commuter rail link between these midland towns.

How typical, though, of FF head-in-the-clouds thinking. Anything to make the voters excited with talk of big planes disgorging tourists by the hundreds of thousand, of wealthy industrialists coming to invest trillions in this new Shangri-La-Biffoworld and, of course, keeping some developer very happy at the thought of selling newly-designated prime-land to the taxpayer.

No wonder WillieO and our other Superhero, Peterpower have stayed sch-tum on the recent setbacks and threats to Shannon, not least the €10 increase in air travel tax. The Big Boss wants a legacy white-elephant in his constituency.

As said earlier, time to throw these bums out !

I say good for him, getting something for his constituents.. The problem here is that our representatives have yet again failed us and didn't get the argument across for Shannon. What we should be lamenting is the fact that those that are representing our region in Dublin are doing shag all for us. We need people that are elected that will put the region first, get in to Leinster house and go balls to the wall with projects to energize the Shannon region.
Just my 2 bob

Simon you might be right but the thing is WE HAVE AN UNDERUSED AIRPORT HERE IN SHANNON. The last thing this country needs is to build another NEW AIRPORT in the middle of a bog - isn't that what Knock was for!

Colm, I think you'll find with all the "independents" (now there's a misnomer if ever there was one) the government doesn't need the greens.

In fairness. Offaly is a lot nearer to Dublin then Shannon. Makes a lot more sense to have a relief airport there then using Shannon.

This project was first announced 3 weeks after Cowen became Taoiseach.

This will be scrapped 3 weeks after he is ousted.

Cowen will be out of office before Bush. The Greens are getting scared AND with Fianna Fail down to 26% they will fancy their chances of winning extra seats in an election that was called as a result of them standing up to Fianna Fail.

Hey, hey wait a minute! I'm sick of all this inadverdant anti Fianna Fail media bollocks. I mean look at all the good things Fianna Fail did for us...our Hospitals are the worst in Europe. Our Broadband is the worst in Eurpoe, our crime is spiralling out of control and the worst record in europe, our rich builders are being let off the hook int he budget as are our poor banks and solicitors. I mean, we are punishing our over 70's and punisishing our children in school so WHAT is your problem?? "Rise and follow Charley Haughey!" Ye stupid people? How could ye not have voted Fianna Fail?

Cowen's motives are now becoming clearer. To hell with shannon and the Mid-West. Time to throw this bum out of office!!

I've an idea, why not have Shannon as the relief airport? Genius.