Mr. Willie Walsh:

Let us be clear. There is nothing the Irish Government can do today to stop that happening. Zero, absolutely nothing, other than all of the committee here to jump up and down and criticise the management team at Aer Lingus. There is nothing can be done. We are offering a guarantee that does not exist and which nobody else who might be interested would be prepared to give or capable of giving - and I have not seen anyone else interested in Aer Lingus other than Ryanair. We are the only airline which gets the benefit of feed from those destinations into London Heathrow, nobody else would get that. That is why all the concern about Cork and Shannon is completely misplaced. If people believe it would be better for me to say "Yes, we will continue for a period to operate Shannon-Heathrow and Cork-Heathrow with the three from Shannon and the four from Cork," yes, I would be prepared to do that. I would not be prepared to go beyond the five years for the reasons I have given.