THE DEPARTMENT of Transport has confirmed that both the level and phasing of investment announced last year for the country's regional airports is under review.
Some €86 million was announced in February 2007 for safety measures as well as development projects at the six regional airports - Donegal, Sligo, Knock, Galway, Waterford and Kerry - under Transport 21 grants scheme. Some €47 million was for projects up to the end of 2010.
Then minister for transport Martin Cullen said the investment reflected the belief that the airports had a key role in facilitating balanced regional development.
In the Budget it was announced that grant aid for the six airports was to be capped at €11 million in 2009, and restricted to "contractually committed" projects.
Kerry airport, which is operating from a terminal built to handle about 30 per cent of the 400,000 passengers it now sees, had been approved for €17.7 million under Transport 21 to develop luggage and other facilities.
Airport sources this weekend said safety works were being carried out under the programme, but there was no timescale for the terminal building.
The airport is effectively the third major project in Kerry to be shelved in recent weeks since the Budget cutbacks, leading to accusations from the local chamber of commerce that regional areas are suffering unduly.
The plan to bypass the congested gateway to Kerry at Castleisland, which had gone out to tender, has been put on the long finger. The Tralee bypass has also been pulled.
The chief executive of Killarney Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, Jerry O'Grady, said east coast projects would suffer far less than the southwest in the cutbacks.
Chamber president Donnacha Galvin said: "This was exactly the type of retrograde decision that we cautioned against in our pre-Budget comments - it makes no economic sense to hinder capital infrastructure development at a time when we are playing catch-up with other locations within Ireland.
"In saying the airport terminal development is not urgent, the department is displaying a serious lack of awareness of how critically poor access to Kerry is viewed by visitors - both independent and organised. Added to the postponement of the Castleisland bypass, this represents two major infrastructure negatives for Kerry over the past couple of weeks"
The department said the "level and phasing" of investment in the regional airports is being examined "as part of an overall review of the capital programme. In the meantime, all of the regional airports had been informed that exchequer funding for capital expenditure will be restricted to existing contractual commitments in 2008 and 2009".