Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

The holding of shares in a company does not give the holder the right to run the company on a day-to day basis. The Government's shareholding does not confer any right to influence commercial operations in the company. It would, therefore, be totally inappropriate for a Government to intervene directly in the commercial decisions of the company. Aer Lingus must now operate in a very competitive environment and act in a commercial manner. The directors must ensure it does so and that is the reality we must face. There is no place to hide as regards competition in the aviation sector.

As I said previously, the reasons for launching the IPO are well known. It was a decision that had to be made to ensure there was an Aer Lingus at the end of the day. I have no doubt that, in two or three years, the Deputy would be talking about the failure of Government policy on Aer Lingus if we had not injected the necessary capital to allow it to compete in the sector in the future.

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