Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I want to speak because I also represent many of the workers who lost their jobs and who are among the most highly-skilled people in the country. The time on the certification they hold is running out. Many of them are making valiant efforts to do FÁS courses and various other personal education. However, because they are highly qualified aircraft engineers they must keep their qualifications up to date or they expire. Recently, I met a significant number of the workers and it was one of the saddest meetings of my political life to see so much skill going a-begging.

What the Tánaiste has described is an unholy mess. We have the worst example of crony capitalism in operation here that I have ever heard described. Will the Tánaiste confirm that in November 2008 the Dublin Airport Authority gave an agreement to SR Technics to give back the hangar? Will she agree that was one of the precipitating factors in collapsing SR Technics in Ireland and allowing it to go to Switzerland and Malta and to establish equivalent facilities somewhere in the gulf?

Aer Lingus is a private company but the State is a significant shareholder. What involvement did State representatives on the board have in the decision by Aer Lingus to outsource key maintenance from this country and send it abroad? That was also an early nail in the coffin. The problem is that the Tánaiste does not seem to have been aware that what was happening was the planned walk-out from this country of a critical industry employing more than 1,000 skilled people, mostly men. It is an extraordinary industrial fiasco.

What we are listening to here is constructive obstruction. Many people are holding their noses, as it were, against Michael O'Leary. All of us have views on him but a bags has been made of this. Where is the Minister for Transport as this debate takes place? He is from a nearby constituency and knows many of the workers personally.

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