MINISTER FOR Transport Leo Varadkar will not sign an order to abolish the €3 air travel tax until airlines decide their winter schedules. He told the Dáil “I definitely do not want to give the airlines something for nothing”.

Mr Varadkar said while July 1st had been “pencilled in” as the date for abolishing the tax, “I have not been comfortable in advising the Minister for Finance that the responses have been sufficient,” from the airlines.

He said meetings were ongoing with the airlines. One of the elements of a three-pronged approach to encourage tourism involved focused marketing of new routes from key tourism markets and this was under discussion.

Some airlines might increase flights and others could cut them. “That creates a certain dilemma. I do not wish to punish the ones who are increasing capacity but you cannot apply one tax to one airline and another to the other one.”

He said he had discussed tourism initiatives including suspending the tax with the Dublin Airport Authority and the four main Irish airlines and he wrote to all other airlines operating services to and from State airports.

Mr Varadkar told Fianna Fáil transport spokesman Timmy Dooley that he hoped to be in a position to make a decision “in the next few weeks”.

Mr Dooley had expressed concern that “we are well into the tourism season” and “nearly past the date” this year to benefit from dropping the tax.

The Minister told him “the real issue arises around the schedules for the winter and next spring”.

He said: “It is in the next few weeks that the airlines will determine their schedules for the winter. What they do will be the best test of whether they have responded, not what they say.”