Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

It is not a day to be calm. Does the Minister agree that only weeks after the privatisation of Aer Lingus, he is guilty of creating what is by any standard a shocking debacle for which the Government is responsible? Does the Minister not find it grotesque that an airline that belonged to the Irish people built by the dedication of thousands of workers over decades is in danger of being controlled by a ruthless private operator who is anti-workers' rights, anti-trade union rights and anti-environment?

Does the Minister understand the fury of Aer Lingus workers who, courtesy of his neoliberal economic agenda of privatisation, find a ravenous cuckoo in the Aer Lingus nest? Their jobs, working conditions, wages and futures are in mortal danger. Does the Minister agree that Aer Lingus workers are fully entitled to protect themselves from this sinister development, to fight this shark from taking Aer Lingus over and to do so with industrial action?

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