Labour Transport Spokesperson Tommy Broughan T.D. has again called on Transport Minister Noel Dempsey to urgently review the operation of the €10 air travel tax.

Deputy Broughan said, "Incredibly there has been no cost benefit analysis carried out of this tax. It is reportedly generating approximately €10 million euro per month in revenue but there has been no examination of how much the air travel tax is costing the travel and tourism industry in terms of lost business and jobs.

"The recently published CSO figures for August 2009 highlight a decrease of nearly 600,000 visitors (or 10.9%) to Ireland for January to August 2009 compared to the same period in 2008.

"Last week, Ireland’s three largest airlines Aer Lingus, Ryanair and Cityjet unusually came together to call on the government to axe the travel tax and argued that since the introduction of the travel tax monthly traffic at Dublin Airport alone has fallen by up to 15%.

"States including Belgium and the Netherlands have also recently abolished their air travel taxes in order to stimulate travel and tourism to those countries. Minister Dempsey should now present a full cost benefit analysis of the air travel tax to Dail Eireann and indicate why the Irish aviation and travel industry should be at such a profound disadvantage to our EU counterparts.

"However, it is also deplorable that the major airlines appear yet again to be taking advantage of Irish sports fans by hiking up the price of fares for flights to Paris for next month’s World Cup play-off with France."