Mr. Neil McGowan:

A DAA voluntary redundancy scheme was made available to the staff. People had to express an interest by 17 June. We believe that there has been sufficient interest in it for the DAA to achieve the reduction in numbers it is seeking. We are engaged in discussions with the DAA on facilitating the exit of those people who wish to exit the company.

On the other employers, we have a very real fear that compulsory redundancy is a likelihood in the short term. Aer Lingus has not engaged with us to date on the 30-day consultation period regarding redundancies despite having informed the Minister a number of weeks ago that it is seeking up to 500 redundancies, which includes approximately 270 in the area SIPTU represents. We have a serious concern around Swissport, which employs 800 people across Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports. In the UK, it announced that 52% of its staff would be made redundant.

There has been no announcement yet in regard to the Irish operations but that is a very real concern. That applies across the board with the third party handlers. There has been very little real engagement with the trade unions. While some of them have indicated they are prepared to offer voluntary schemes, when those negotiations pan out it becomes very clear that the schemes that the companies are offering are not voluntary because they refer to statutory redundancy and there is no negotiation in regard to selection criteria, etc. Within the DAA we are in a space where we believe there is sufficient interest in the voluntary severance scheme but beyond the DAA the concerns around compulsory redundancy are very real.