Brussels, 27/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 26 September, the European Commission decided to allow the Irish government of finance infrastructure developments at six small regional airports. The aid, in the form of capital investment expenditure, will last 5 years, 2006-2010, and will provide funding of up to €65.5 million to the airports. The measure provides for two types of funding: - investments to improve safety and security, which can be granted aid of up to 90% of eligible costs; - public funding for the expansion or improvement of airport facilities (to allow better use to be made of infrastructure, to better serve their catchment areas and thereby improve connectivity), for which up to 75% of the eligible funding is allowed. The six airports for which the public funding is being made available are Donegal, Sligo, Knock, Galway, Kerry and Waterford. They are considered under EC rules to be “small regional airports”, and in 2005 had a total passenger through-flow of 1.3 million. The Commission found that the proposed scheme was in line with Community rules as the financing is set to achieve a clear objective of general interest.