Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy Seán Ryan. The position paper presented by the Minister today is a joke. I would have expected an approach that would have made a serious attempt to set out a White Paper addressing the strategic issues, the tests of success of the project from the point of view of the taxpayer, the travelling public and international access to the country, and the critical benchmarks we need to achieve to make it a success. However, none of this is contained in the position paper. One year ago Aer Lingus had a superb management team in place and the company had successfully overcome huge difficulties within an opportunity for great development. When we asked the Government how the company could get access to capital for its development we were met with a deafening silence. There was no suggestion of State money or of agreeing to a flotation. Twelve months later, the company has lost the management team, the environment is nothing like as propitious and the Government is pushing ahead. I cannot understand why it has not proposed a well thought out strategy that could be laid before the Dáil that could give us confidence that the Government knew what it was doing on the matter. My confidence in the Government's handling of this matter was dramatically undermined when the Taoiseach accused the former management of trying to steal the company's assets. That sort of thinking suggests the Government is trying to drive on both sides of the road at the same time, the natural result of which will be a crash. I worry that the ordinary stakeholders — workers, the travelling public and Irish taxpayers — will be made the patsies because the matter was not properly thought through. I am disappointed we do not have a position paper which could pass muster in terms of addressing and analysing the issues we are debating. We will probably not get another opportunity to debate these issues.

See this speech in context