Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, made the point this morning that this is a landmark decision. It certainly is that. It marks a new low in the behaviour of this Government in terms of its arrogance, undemocratic manoeuvring and contempt for this House that it would ram through in a matter of days strategic decisions about the future of an almost 80 year old company that has employed tens of thousands of people and has been key to the strategic development of this country.

I am very conscious that thousands of my colleagues in Aer Lingus in Dublin, Cork and Shannon, and their families, are looking at this debate. I am conscious of the 15,000 members of the pension scheme who can now draw no conclusion other than that the manoeuvres around that scheme were part of a deal to get this out of the way so the Government could get what it wanted all along.

I want to look at where the impetus for this takeover came from because this is a profitable company, even throughout the years of the economic crisis. It is a company with a confirmed delivery for nine new long haul aircraft. It is a company with cash reserves of almost €1 billion. Let us be clear. The driver of the IAG bid is not what is in the best interests of the Irish nation, the workers or the passengers. The driver of the IAG bid is the commercial interests of the British, European and Middle Eastern shareholders who own IAG, and that will be the driver of their involvement if they get hold of it.

The Taoiseach is proposing to give them ownership of that for €1.3 billion. This is a company with cash reserves of €1 billion and Heathrow slots worth more than €0.5 billion, not to mention the property, the brand and the product. It is an outrage that we would be sitting here discussing this sale. The Taoiseach talked about positives. Many of those positives were already in place. For the Taoiseach to say that the undoubted negative consequences will not happen is pathetic.

My questions to the Taoiseach are as follows. How, in God's name, can he come in here and say that the so-called concessions he got can stand up to any scrutiny - his "B" share? He proposes that Aer Lingus would be a captive subsidiary in IAG. What is to stop it using it for itself or leasing it back to IAG? It is rubbish.

The Taoiseach said there are guarantees for workers. The chief executive officer of Aer Lingus, who stands to benefit handsomely from this sale, says he does not foresee any redundancies in the future. I am sorry but I do not take any comfort from that statement and I do not believe a group of workers, who previously were given what they were told were legally binding letters of comfort which did not stand up, will take any comfort from it either. Can the Taoiseach explain to us how these guarantees are somehow different? Crucially, what is the big hurry? The Government was waiting on this for months. Is it that the Taoiseach is afraid his Labour backbenchers will not able to withstand the pressure from the workers and the pensioners who are enraged by this sale?

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