Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I will try to get all my questions in together. I suppose the Minister was as gobsmacked as the rest of us this morning to hear this news. I assume we, the taxpayer, employed advisers prior to the sale of Aer Lingus. Did they ever consider this possibility in their risk assessment? We did talk about the possibility of British Airways buying Aer Lingus. Perhaps that was just in jest but there has always been a possibility that another airline would buy it. Was it ever considered by the advisers that the one competing airline in Ireland might buy it?

The Minister spoke to Aer Lingus this morning. When the chief executive contacted the Minister, did he give any indication of the Aer Lingus response to this proposal? Obviously shares are being sold all day. Ryanair now owns almost as much of Aer Lingus as the Government. Was there an official response from Aer Lingus as to how it might react to this bid from Ryanair to buy shares in the company?

Did either Michael O'Leary or Aer Lingus give the Minister any idea why Ryanair decided to do this? Was it a thought out strategy, in which case one can well ask why Ryanair waited post-flotation to start buying shares? There has been a rumour that another airline was sniffing around and that the Ryanair bid was an attempt to stymie that attempt. Is it the case that Ryanair simply wanted to get into the long-haul business and found Aer Lingus a convenient vehicle for doing this?

A great deal has been said about the loss of competition and clearly that would be a major concern for everybody from the consumers point of view as people would lose out in terms of price and choice. Does the Minister think that if this matter goes to the European competition authorities Ryanair will have a very strong argument to the effect that when it went into new markets as well as existing markets, it grew the market in both cases? Will that not be a strong argument against our argument that this is anti-competitive and that we will lose out?

Everybody says we must block this move. It is important to look soberly at this matter and consider what exactly it means in the long term. Currently, Ryanair holds all the cards. It can hold on to what it has and go no further but it can also drive Aer Lingus into the ground in terms of competing against it. It now has access to 281 new 737s. It can out-compete Aer Lingus, drive it into the ground and buy it for nothing in six months. The knee-jerk reaction is not necessarily always the best one. Has the Minister considered all of these lines of inquiry? Is his preferred option to block the take-over or negotiate with Ryanair? Where are we going next?

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