Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. This is the first opportunity we have had to engage in dialogue on the floor of the House. I congratulate him on his appointment and have no doubt that he will continue to do a very good job.

There is some confusion over the negotiation of the IAG proposal to purchase Aer Lingus. Both the Minister and the Minister for Finance have stated that they are limited in what they can tell us in this House, that there are issues of confidentiality and so on. However, it appears that under the Irish takeover rules such requirements do not apply to shareholders and we are a shareholder. We in this House, as representatives of the people, seem to be entitled to know what is going on, the content of the offers that are made - we saw some extra commitments made the other day - and the state of play of the offers. For example, is it not appropriate that both the Committee of Public Accounts, which is the guardian of the public purse, and the committee that represents the Minister's own Department represent a considerable degree of the shareholders, as well as this House itself? Those advising the Government - Credit Suisse, a banking group, IBI Corporate Finance, another finance group, McCann FitzGerald, a body of solicitors - are all very fine corporate entities in their own right, but who is representing the shareholder and advising the Government? This House would and should be the appropriate body under the terms of the Irish takeover rules. There is nothing to prevent it.

In that context, will the Minister consider making available all the information that has been made available to him to date to one or other of the committees to which I have referred and to regard them as advisors to him in terms of the shareholding the citizens of this country hold in Aer Lingus? Many issues need to be addressed here in terms of the protection of the public purse, the issue of jobs, connectivity, and so on. If there is no activity of this kind it would be difficult for us to deny we are buying a pig in a poke if there is a recommendation from the Aer Lingus board to accept the IAG offer. It is would be seen by the people that there had not been adequate advice from the source that we all represent, namely the shareholders who own 25.1% of Aer Lingus.

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