Dublin Airport has recorded its busiest ever period, with 25 million passengers travelling through the airport in 2015.

The DAA is to create 350 new jobs due to the increase in traffic.

Passenger numbers increased by 15% last year, with an additional 3.3 million people using the airport.

The DAA says the expansion was fuelled by 22 new routes and extra capacity on almost 40 existing services.

To cope with growing demand, the airport is midway through hiring some 350 new staff in areas such as security, customer service and asset management.

The growth in passenger numbers is expected to continue into 2016, as 11 new scheduled services have already been announced for this year.

Tourism Minister Paschal Donohoe has welcomed the record-breaking traffic at Dublin Airport and the new jobs.

Earlier, he told the Pat Kenny Show here on Newstalk these figures are even higher than during the boom times.

The airport is also currently evaluating plans for the development of a new runway.

Planning permission for a new runway was granted in 2007, but the project was put on hold due to the economic downturn.

Passenger traffic to and from continental Europe, which the airport's largest market segment, increased by 15% last year to almost 12.8 million, which was a new record.

And a record 8.9 million people travelled between Dublin and Britain by air in 2015, which was a 14% increase on the previous year.

Transatlantic passenger numbers increased by 17%, while passenger traffic to other international destinations - mainly the Middle East and Africa - increased by 25% to a record 805,000.

More than one million passengers transferred or transited through the airport last year, another a new record.

Transfer passenger numbers increased by 27% as Dublin Airport continued to become a significant hub for transatlantic transfers.