Extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Cabinet
'International Civil Aviation Conference, Dublin, 1946: instructions to Irish delegates'
(GC 4/143) (Item 1) (S13778)

Consideration was given to a memorandum dated the 25th February, 1946, submitted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and to a memorandum dated the 27th February, 1946, submitted by the Minister for Finance, relative to the instructions to be given to the Irish delegates to the North Atlantic Route Service Conference to be held in Dublin in March, 1946, at the request of the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The following recommendations of the Minister for Industry and Commerce were approved:

• that the Shannon Airport should be appointed as the European centre for the transmission by radio to a centre in the USA of all European meteorological data required there and for the reception of US data for re-transmission to European bases.
• that, if necessary as a corollary to securing the position of the Shannon Airport in international aviation, the Airport should provide a communications service (i) for air services not operating to the Shannon Airport and (ii) as a central point-to-point channel for operational messages. (Note: In this connection it is understood that the qualification contained in the words 'if necessary as a corollary to securing the position of the Shannon Airport in international aviation' was not being insisted upon by the Government.)
• that the Irish delegation should secure that the Shannon Airport would retain importance as a provider of facilities, by having a substantial sphere of control assigned to the Airport, and if essential towards this end, have the Shannon Airport nominated as the major European control centre.
• that the staff of the Irish meteorological service should be augmented to permit of
  1. an improvement in the network of Irish observing stations;
  2. an increase in the frequency of upper air observations at Valentia observatory;
  3. the preparation of statistical data for Irish Airports and of studies of local weather;
  4. the institution of arrangements for securing weather reports from Irish merchant ships;
  5. the maintenance of Provisional International Civil Aviation Organisation standards.
• that, having approved as proposed at (d) above, the Irish delegation should reject any suggestion that Ireland should contribute towards the cost of maintaining special weather observation ships or special meteorological reporting stations in arctic regions.
• that, unless necessary towards safeguarding the position of the Shannon Airport in international aviation, the Irish delegation should oppose any tendency of the conference to adopt procedures requiring the Airport to give, as a matter of routine, meteorological service to aircraft not using the Shannon base.
• that the Irish delegation should encourage the establishment in Ireland of a search and rescue centre and units but without acceptance of financial responsibility.

It was also decided

1. that the transatlantic Airport and the other services which this country was in a position to provide for transatlantic air transport operations should be developed to the fullest possible extent, without raising now the question of recovering from other Governments or their air transport operators the expenditure involved, and
2. that this country was entitled to look for a recoupment of as much as feasible of the annual costs and charges involved in the provision of the Airport and the other services referred to and that a submission regarding this question of recoupment should in due course be made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to the Government.