The operator of Dublin Airport will continue to work overnight on a plan it will present to the Government outlining how it will tackle long delays for passengers.
The daa has been told to report back by tomorrow morning on solutions that can be put in place ahead of the upcoming bank holiday weekend to deliver an "acceptable passenger experience".
It comes after Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan and Minister of State for International Transport Hildegarde Naughton met daa representatives this morning following scenes that saw more than 1,000 passengers miss flights yesterday due to lengthy queues.
In a statement the Department of Transport said Mr Ryan and Ms Naughton asked daa to consider all options that can be taken in the immediate and medium-term to resolve this matter.
The airport said it is working on a plan to avoid a repeat of last weekend's chaos.
Graeme McQueen, Media Relations Manager for Dublin Airport, said the daa will present a plan to the Government tomorrow outlining how it will tackle the delays.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Mr McQueen said: "I think what we were saying to the Minister today and what we'll try and reflect in the answer that we give tomorrow is how we're going to cope with the fact that we don't have resources where they need to be based on where passenger growth is going.
"We're working very hard to rectify that with our resourcing trying to get new security staff on board.
"That process obviously takes quite a long time because of the training that's required for these jobs, so we're looking to see what we can put in place for this weekend to make sure that the June bank holiday weekend, where we'll be seeing up to 100,000 passengers each day this weekend, we're looking to assure the minister that we can cope with those numbers."
Earlier Minister Ryan said the daa must know the reputational damage done to the airport and the country.
He said "that cannot be added to by them not providing proper compensation to people who lost flights."
Minister of State for International Transport Ms Naughton described today's meeting with the daa as "very frank and robust".
Speaking to RTÉ's News at One, she said: "We're not happy, I'm very... angry and frustrated in relation to what happened over the weekend."
Ms Naughton said that the delays experienced in March had been addressed.
She said: "We had daily meetings with the daa and they had managed the queues and managed to improve the situation, so what happened last weekend was extremely disappointing."
Ms Naughton said the issue at the airport is a "high priority" for the Government.
She said: "I can assure you and all the passengers and people listening here that the Government is watching this very closely and both myself and Minister Ryan have made it clear to the daa that we must never see a repeat of what happened this weekend."
She added that the core responsibility for tackling the issue lies with the daa.
"That is what they're there to do," she said.
A spokesperson for Dublin Airport said that passengers who missed flights yesterday can claim for any out-of-pocket expenses they subsequently had to pay.
This will include any costs incurred in changing flights, any overnight accommodation needed if flights were missed, and related taxi or other transport costs to and from hotels.
Officials from daa will seek receipts and evidence of flight bookings to substantiate claims.
Affected passengers can make a claim by emailing customerservice@dublinairport.com.
The authority said it hopes to have a claims form page posted on its website soon.
Read more:
Dublin Airport apologises after long queues lead to missed flights
'I won't fly from Dublin Airport ever again', say couple who missed flight due to queues
Airline calls for military deployment
The Chief Executive of Ryanair called for the army to be deployed to help to alleviate the lengthy queues at the airport.
Eddie Wilson said "this is a pure resourcing issue" and he believes "the Army are ideal" as part of a temporary solution.
Mr Wilson said: "We should get the army there, do the queues, they are already security cleared, they could help the people and divert the daa staff to working the screens in the more specialised areas."
He added: "We are not experiencing these difficulties anywhere else in Europe, certainly not to the extent we have here in Dublin."
However, Mr Ryan said he does not believe the Army being brought in would overcome the immediate problems.
He said the airport has to look to other ways to ensure it has the capacity to cover.
The ministers told daa officials that what happened yesterday was totally unacceptable, adding that it acknowledged and accepted it was a terrible failing.
Mr Ryan said he understood there was a shortage of staff in key areas and that Dublin Airport will outline how the situation came about.
Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, he said, daa have to make sure they are able to manage the numbers of people going through the airport.
Absenteeism not to blame - SIPTU
Meanwhile, SIPTU's Industrial Organiser with the Aviation Sector Jerry Brennan has said that staff absenteeism is not the cause of the current issues at Dublin Airport.
Also speaking to RTÉ's News at One, he said the staff that are there are under tremendous pressure to get people through security and onto their flights.
He said if people were absent they would have a legitimate reason to be absent.
Mr Brennan said that too many people were let go at daa in the past few years and he did not think anyone suspected that aviation would come back and rebound as quickly as it did post-pandemic.
He said that over 1,000 people left the daa under a voluntary redundancy package introduced during the pandemic.
Mr Brennan said that now right across the aviation sector they are finding it extremely difficult to try to recruit people.
Chairman of the Consumers Association of Ireland Michael Kilcoyne labelled what happened at the airport as a "pure disaster" and called on the Government to look at the daa Board.
Speaking on the same programme, he said he had "no confidence" in the board's ability to run a public airport and that passenger numbers should have been foreseen.
"This is the third or fourth time a very serious situation has happened at the airport in recent months."
He said that ultimately it's going to be the tax payer footing the bill, which he did not believe was right.
Airport chief to appear at Oireachtas committee
The Chief Executive of daa is to appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport on Wednesday to discuss the recent passenger delays and the plans to address the problem.
Dalton Philips will be joined by members of the airport's senior management team at the meeting in Leinster House.
The chairperson of the committee, Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell, said: "We need to see solutions from the daa as to precisely how they are going to ensure that this is not repeated next weekend, during the June bank holiday."
Mr O’Donnelly also said daa will have to "outline how they will deal with compensating all those passengers who missed their flights over the weekend."
Earlier, the Limerick TD said he is embarrassed for Ireland following the chaos at the airport yesterday.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said a similar situation happened on Saturday, and people missed their flights then as well.
Passengers at the weekend experienced horrendous service, he said, and it was down to not having enough security lanes open and staff on duty. He added that staff were also under severe pressure.
"Excuses and apologies are not good enough anymore. They're unacceptable," he said.
"We need to have solutions as to how they're going to ensure that this isn't repeated next weekend, during the June bank holiday weekend for them and how they will deal with recompensing all those passengers that actually missed their flights."
Labour's Spokesperson on Transport Duncan Smith said daa made a massive error in letting so many security and other staff go towards the end of the Covid pandemic.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Mr Smith said the shambles at the airport, following weeks of chaos, was all of the airport operator’s making.
He said the situation was turning into an international embarrassment for the country, and that many people will not return after their experiences at the airport over the weekend.
"This wasn't even a bank holiday weekend and we have the June bank holiday weekend coming up. The summer season has started, we have a pent-up demand for foreign travel. People have to travel obviously for work, to visit family that they haven't seen for many years. So this was predictable.
"And we're not getting any sense that this will be resolved in the next couple of days or albeit in the next couple of weeks. So this is this is turning into an international embarrassment for the country. This is our main gateway into Dublin, into the country."
Additional reporting: Fergal O'Brien
