Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I am glad Deputy Rabbitte has clarified that he has no difficulty with capital injection into Aer Lingus. If I took him up wrongly on that I apologise but now we know that Labour Party policy is to allow equity capital into Aer Lingus and I welcome that.

When the board of Aer Lingus receives advice, makes its decision and concludes how best to do this, it will be for the development of Aer Lingus. I do not see any loss to the State as it can hold whatever share it wants. Although many people would argue that is not a good idea, that discussion is for another day.

Perhaps Aer Lingus does not need to do this within the next few months but it will in the future. There are huge opportunities for developing this country's aviation industry such as getting more slots in the United States. The last list I saw from the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism showed that 22 or 23 slots would like to come here but cannot because of our current aviation policy. If we want to build on the figure of 6.5 million in the tourism sector, and I believe we do because it is good for future employment, we need more investment in Aer Lingus.

The new chief executive of Aer Lingus brings expertise of long-haul operations in the Gulf area such as Bahrain and Dubai. Major opportunities exist for this country for flight connections to those countries and the United States. This is where future growth will be and it is inevitable that Aer Lingus needs a capital injection to benefit from this. Perhaps Deputy Rabbitte is correct that there is not much capacity for small firms and that institutional money is necessary, but advice will be taken on how it will be structured. The issue now is to allow Aer Lingus to develop in a way that allows it to expand and bring in more tourists, as that is good for the country and good for the airline.

See this speech in context