Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Walsh for his comments. If the Chairman will allow me to extend my comment, the 130 employees based out of Shannon have had their salaries largely paid by the Government, which is the point I wish to make. The taxpayer has more or less paid the wage bill for the Shannon employees. On that basis, the Government should have some say if it is paying the wage bill. There should be some conditionality built into it in order that those employees would at least be strategically located in the Shannon base.

I absolutely get the point here but there is no deflecting blame here because mandatory hotel quarantine had a purpose during the time of peak Covid-19 infection rates of 8,000 cases a day. This has now been tapered back to 300 or so cases a day and it does not now have a purpose. Mandatory hotel quarantine, however, has been a catalyst to where we are at today but Aer Lingus senior management also seized an opportunity presented to it by a crisis to withdraw from Shannon. I just think that the timing of it was chronic. It was the day on which this issue was to come before Cabinet. It is on the eve of things reopening. It will be five or six weeks before planes are back in the sky, so that is also something of a factor. There are certain actions the Government will take, which are already happening. The Taoiseach is to meet the relevant parties tomorrow but there needs to be a certain amount of playing hardball with Aer Lingus here as well, because it has done well out of the Government and its wage bill has been fully paid by it.

It also has shown little loyalty to its staff based in Shannon because the carrot hanging over the staff there since yesterday is that they may be transferred, possibly, to Dublin. That will not happen because when the company looked at temporary lay-offs within its workforce, the company held on to some staff members who had only come in the door ten or 11 weeks before the onset of Covid-19 pandemic but laid off staff members who had been in Shannon for 30 or 35 years. They showed loyalty on each occasion to Dublin and Cork over Shannon and this needs to be stated. We are supportive of Aer Lingus and I will do everything as a Deputy in County Clare and in my position as my party’s aviation spokesperson. We will work on this night and day but we also need to call out some of these truths.