Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

Aer Lingus is a private company and so is Ryanair. Therefore we do have private companies that control air access to Ireland. That is already the case. It is also the case for Britain, for example, where British Airways and British Midland are not owned by the state. It is not that unusual and I am sure it is also the case for other island nations.

It may well have been the case that at the time of the sale of the 75% stake in Aer Lingus, the remaining 25% stake was held for strategic reasons but it did not turn out that way. We saw that when Aer Lingus pulled out of Shannon some years ago and there was nothing the then Government could do about it. As regards the Heathrow slots, we know now that the 25% stake is not enough to block sales. One would have to form an alliance with other shareholders to do so. In addition, the slots are not as important as they were in the past.

In terms of getting information from the company, although we own a 25% stake we cannot even see the report on leave and return of employees because it is a secret which the board is keeping to itself. That gives the Deputy a rough idea of the value of holding that stake.

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