Members of the Defence Forces are officially on standby from today to help in the event of a Covid-19 outbreak among workers at Dublin Airport.
The emergency plan, which runs for six weeks, is aimed at preventing flight cancellations and reducing long queues.
The army will be utilised if more than 20 per cent of airport security staff are out of work with the virus.
It follows hundreds of missed flights at the airport in recent months as management struggled to recruit workers following voluntary redundancies during the pandemic.
Kevin Cullinane, DAA head of Communications, says it hopes not to have to put the contingency plan into action;
"If we do it would be purely at the perimeter of the aerodrome in vehicle control posts that are normally manned by daa security staff. The army would then post themselves at those vehicle checkpoints, freeing up daa staff to go into terminals one or terminal two."
He went on to say the security situation at the airport has improved significantly in recent weeks;
"We're on course to double the number of security staff from 450 we would have last October to 920 by the end of this month."
Main image: temporary holding areas outside Dublin Airport
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