No 'shakedown': Minister defends €800 Dubai evacuation flight fee as ‘standard practice’
Vivienne Clarke
Neale Richmond, Minister of State with responsibility for international development and the diaspora, has expressed disappointment at the claim by Senator Patricia Stephenson that the fare of €800 per person for a chartered flight was “a shakedown.”
“I'm very, very disappointed to hear that from Senator Stephenson, someone I respect very much. This is standard practice. This was the same when we did evacuation flights throughout Covid,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“There is a contribution. It's understandable. There’s no mention that children will fly for free. Of course, the six-and-a-half-hour bus ride from Dubai to Muscat will be covered. We have not had any pushback from anyone on the ground. If people are in financial difficulty, that's a different story.”
Richmond said that officials in the region and in the crisis consular centre had worked very hard to get 300 Irish citizens on a plane tomorrow from Muscat to Dublin to complement another Emirates commercial flight tonight.
“We're in constant engagement to increase the amount of flights to get primarily those first and foremost who are stranded in transit, but then those who are there on holiday with priority going to the most vulnerable
“We're actually ahead of most European member countries being able to do evacuation flights. Only the Italians and Germans have gone ahead of us. It is our priority.
“There's a huge Irish population in the region and transiting through the region and we want to make sure they're safe.”
The Minister said there were 24,000 registered in the region, 16,000 of whom had registered since Saturday. The “vast majority” were not looking to leave.
“This is their home; about 14,000 Irish people call Dubai itself their home. And I must just say the UAE government in particular have been extremely helpful to the Irish on the ground in terms of providing information, security, covering accommodation costs for those stranded there.
“But we have had over 2,400 contacts to our consular centre since the weekend for people looking for assistance to get out of Dubai. There was 900 caught in transit, another 2000 on holiday, and there are some who do live there who don't, just want to come home.”
Many of those people would return to Ireland on commercial flights, he explained.
“We had over 300 people on a flight from Emirates last night. We'll have the same again today. A number have been able to take Etihad flights through the region. The last count, the UAE authorities told us that they're able to get 48 flights an hour out of Dubai. So, they're working through a very large backlog through what is the third largest aircraft hub in the world.”
There had been great interest in the first charter flight announced, said Richmond.
“We will run as many charter flights as we need. We're prepared to do more into the week, but that depends on demand.”
