"What would help people like myself is the removal of APD to allow more services from the regions, as I have mentioned before Manchester has lost potential flights to Dublin because of APD"
Only in the heads of people from Manchester.
Dublin is in a different country. It serves a different market. The two do not compete at all except in the sense of airlines allegedly "pitting them against each other" to extract the best deal on cost base.
You want to serve Ireland - you fly to Dublin (or Cork, Shannon etc). Manchester is not a substitute for serving the Irish market just as Dublin is not a substitute for the North of the UK.
This is just a needless extension of the siege mentality among some MAN supporters vis a vis London.