Mr. Matt Staunton:

There are two question left. Both Deputies Maloney and Ellis posed the question on the value of assurances. Assurances can be written down but a commercial company giving a government assurances has no value. The commercial interests of that company will always come first. We saw that when our own Government was not able to compel Aer Lingus not to unplug Shannon but it unplugged Shannon from Heathrow a number of years ago. One learns that the hard way. The commercial interest will always come first.

The other point raised by Deputy Ellis that was not answered was the bonus culture of the executive management team and company. In his presentation Mr. Cullen mentioned the LTIP scheme. Effectively, we have a management team wooing that company who get rewarded based on the value of the share price for a certain period. Of course, executive managers are going to shop around, bring on offers and bring on bids because they will get the bonus and owners have to be very careful in companies in those circumstances that it is absolutely necessary, which is what is at the heart of this debate.