Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

That is a disgraceful reply. The Taoiseach did nothing more than read what could be the Aer Lingus management's press statement. How can workers take anything seriously when they are supposed to begin from the point of view of accepting a complete tearing up of agreements and reassurances that were given by the very top management only a matter of months ago? The Taoiseach comes in here and lectures me month after month about so-called partnership. He professes to believe in these mechanisms but when they are torn up by the management which he appointed and a company of which he owns one quarter, he is silent. This is hypocrisy in the extreme.

These workers have made hundreds of millions of euro in profits for Aer Lingus over the past few years. We have a management which now apes the worst features of the Ryanair outfit, namely, an anti-trade union and anti-worker approach.

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