Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

The Minister for Transport has played a personal role in the disaster we have on our hands. Over the past two years, he devoted a large amount of his time and energy to the privatisation of Aer Lingus, often to the detriment of many other areas of his responsibility. For purely ideological reasons, the Minister was determined to ram through the privatisation of our national airline. We are all reaping the rewards of that recklessness.

The Minister put forward various arguments for the privatisation of Aer Lingus, all spurious. He cannot make any of them stand up. Over the past two years he was warned from this side of the House, the airline's workers and various commentators of the potential consequences of his actions. He ignored those warnings and went ahead recklessly, ceding all control of our national airline. We do not know what the future holds for it. We are facing the appalling vista of Ryanair gobbling up the company. We are moving from the situation where we have two healthy airlines, providing competition and choice for airline travellers, to a potential monopoly of 85% of the routes out of the country.

The Minister made several claims for the need to privatise Aer Lingus. The principal claim was in respect of the company's need for access to capital. That was based on the understanding that there would be agreements on the open skies policy. The Minister spoke about it as if the open skies policy was to be agreed in a matter of months. He claimed Aer Lingus urgently required capital to buy new aircraft to avail of the policy's opportunities. Those discussions have run into the sand and no one knows if the open skies will ever happen. The very basis for the Minister's argument was spurious.

This morning the Aer Lingus CEO, Mr. Dermot Mannion, confirmed that it will be purchasing two additional long-haul aircraft next year but it does not know the situation after that. There was no need for a flotation or additional capital. There were no difficulties in the Minister providing additional funding to the airline. Apart from that, the airline would have had no difficulty in raising funding through loans or leasing arrangements for new aircraft.

The Minister has jeopardised our national airline's future. He has thrown it to the wolves of the Stock Exchange. There is a serious risk of airline travellers having no choice and being tied into an airline that controls over 85% of the national aviation business. The Minister has been reckless in the extreme, but it is the Irish people who will have to pay the price. I am particularly concerned about the implications for the Aer Lingus staff. The Minister and his colleagues have thrown them to the wolves too with no regard for the critical role Aer Lingus plays in the life of the north side of Dublin. Shame on them.

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