Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue. I condemn in the strongest possible way the actions of Aer Lingus to terminate the Shannon-Heathrow service. The decision has serious implications and it will have a significant impact on tourism, business and other commercial activity in the region. It is important to question the commercial sense of this decision when one considers that it is a profitable route with in excess of 350,000 passengers using it.

I also question the clandestine nature of the way Aer Lingus announced the decision. That approach has no place in today's partnership approach to doing business. There is certainly a lack of consultation with the workers, the airport authorities and the Government.

The Aer Lingus management decision has damaged extensively the brand Aer Lingus. It has damaged the region through adverse publicity, both nationally and internationally. The commercial reality Aer Lingus management has attempted to use is not credible. Aer Lingus has not made any effort to address profitability at Shannon or to address what they have said is a very significant cost base.

It beggars belief why Aer Lingus ended the third-party handling at the airport in recent times. It was a very fruitful source of extra income. Aer Lingus made no effort to grow the business out of the airport in recent years and has virtually ignored the airport. It has announced no new routes. The management of Aer Lingus has a commercial responsibility to sweat the asset that is Shannon Airport before it takes the decision to move to another base.

Aer Lingus workers have yet again been ignored by the management of Aer Lingus. These people have compromised and have demonstrated the capacity to compromise in the past through the various restructuring plans, including the Cahill plan. Aer Lingus has clearly made a bad commercial decision, one which will ultimately prove to be a rock on which the management perishes.

This debate is about connectivity for the west and mid-west. We are all well aware that connectivity is vital for the successful business operations in the region and it is critical for access to global markets and to sustain the level of wealth creation that has taken place throughout the mid-west. It should allow companies to progress along their growth cycle.

Business leaders have spoken out in a very clear and unambiguous way, particularly those from the sectors most affected. They have spoken of the difficulty it will create for them in getting future investment. Development agencies have described difficulties in getting new greenfield investment and more importantly, many of the people in the companies who are trying to progress from being a manufacturing to a more highly skilled based workforce have indicated it will pose significant difficulties for them.

Aer Lingus has followed an agenda often associated with east-coast thinking, where the notion is of one central hub in Ireland with other airports acting on a spoke off it. That is unacceptable to any of us, especially those of us representing the west or mid-west. We have the second-largest concentration of industry outside Dublin and we need direct access through Heathrow to international destinations.

I welcome the clear statement in today's motion, particularly that the Government supports the connectivity between Shannon and London-Heathrow. I know this was affirmed through a statement from the Cabinet meeting of 29 August, which endorsed this commitment.

See this speech in context