Dublin Airport office staff are to be recruited into security roles to help cope with the huge numbers expected over the Bank Holiday Weekend.
Group Head of Communications at the Dublin Airport Authority, Kevin Cullinane said there will be a “small army” of staff working.
It follows this week’s disaster at the airport when more than 1,000 people missed flights because of delays.
He said “Additional staff are being rostered. Staff are being offered over time. Our company-wide task force of over 450 employees in back offices such as HR, finance, IT, will be complementing the existing core of over 600 security officers over this weekend,” he said.
“So there will be a small army of over 1,000 daa employees on hand, augmented by contract staff in queue management to make sure that the optimum number of staff are on duty right through the Bank Holiday weekend and the summer months, June July, August ahead.”
There is also a huge drive at the airport to recruit new staff.
The authority’s Media Relations Manager Graeme McQueen said they had received 5,000 job applications.
He told RTE that recruitment began before Christmas last year, with more than 500 candidates interviewed and 200 hired to date.
“It’s not that we weren’t recruiting, we just weren’t recruiting at the levels required to meet the demands of what we are currently seeing,” Mr McQueen said.
He said training of new staff typically takes between five and six weeks.
Garda clearance and similar clearance from countries where the candidates may have lived in the past also creates a delay.
The forecast for passenger levels has been inaccurate, he added.
Mr McQueen said: “The bounce back in passenger numbers right across Europe has been much quicker than we were expecting and that’s something we are having to deal with.”