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

There is no doubt in my mind that the process under way over the past several months is nothing more than a charade designed to give the illusion that the Government was debating issues and wrestling concessions from IAG, when it had in fact already decided the outcome. That is not surprising from a Fine Gael point of view. After all, it was the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, who hand-picked Willie Walsh as chair of the NTMA advisory board, which has responsibility for advising NewEra on the divestment of State assets. This day is not a surprise, therefore. It is a vindication of the policies of neoliberalism and privatisation pursued by Fine Gael. It is an entirely different matter when we examine the record of the Labour Party and what it pretended to stand for when it went to the electorate.

In this regard, people all over the country are shocked at what is now happening. I see myself first and foremost as an Aer Lingus worker. I am thinking today of the people who built the company. They got themselves and their children out of bed in the morning to arrive in time for early shifts and to keep the airline afloat. I am thinking of the pensioners whose retirement income is decimated by the rushed legislation this Government introduced. Over the last several months, Labour Party Deputies took to the airwaves to say they will make sure the pensioners are protected if the airline is sold. They promised they would get the money to shore up the living standards of deferred and existing pensioners, some of whom worked and contributed to their pension schemes for 40 years. They have come up with absolutely nothing, however.

Pride in Aer Lingus is not confined to the workers in the company. It is an iconic company which is held dear by the travelling public and generations of Irish people. Not many companies can claim a history of almost 80 years of providing secure, permanent and pensionable employment. Tens of thousands of people had good jobs in the company at its bases in Dublin, Cork and Shannon. In the 1980s, Aer Lingus workers paid more taxes than all the farmers in the country. The company was always a net contributor to the Exchequer. It supported connectivity and regional development. It was an important signifier of Ireland as an independent nation, and people valued it as such.

We have been treated to a yarn by the Government that the betrayal put before us today is necessary to secure the airline's future. That narrative makes me sick because it bears no relationship to reality. If it was true that Aer Lingus needed somebody to take it over or partner with, surely to God the board and management in which the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport expressed such confidence would have actively sought a partner. The only reason this deal is on the table is because IAG is acting in the interest of its shareholders, who are resident in Britain, Europe and Qatar. It is revenue for shareholders that motivates the deal. The idea that it is in the best interest of Ireland as a small country that cannot survive in the global aviation industry is a joke. We have been hearing that claim in Aer Lingus for many years. We heard it after nine-11 and every time a national carrier went to the wall. We are hearing again today that we should consider the fate of Finnair, Malév and the others. We are not other airlines, however. Fine Gael Deputies were speaking about Aer Lingus becoming part of the One World Alliance. Aer Lingus has a proud tradition of linking up with other airlines but we are also different to other countries because we are the only island nation on the periphery of Europe that does not have a terrestrial link with mainland Europe.

The benefits outlined by the Minister and the Taoiseach in respect of growing the airline and tourism already exist. The Wild Atlantic Way was supposedly responsible for this previously. It is ludicrous. Who owns Aer Lingus is irrelevant from that point of view. The question is who will benefit from the enormously positive contributions that Aer Lingus makes. This company has been consistently profitable.

It is a company that is growing with nine long-haul aircraft booked, and it already has €1 billion in cash reserves. Therefore, the driver of this sale is not the future of the airline or the public's benefit, but what is in the commercial interests of AIG.

The guarantees the Minister talked about are somewhat pathetic. I would like the Minister to address this B share and the so-called veto he has because it is laughable. It is unprecedented in terms of world economics and global capitalism. Given that the Minister will be a captive subsidiary in IAG, how can he guarantee that Aer Lingus will not lease that to IAG, or that IAG would not use it for its own purposes? I am particularly concerned about the workers, including ground staff. Allusions to growing staff are just part of an unsubstantiated wish list for future development. Some of the growth in cabin crew and pilots was there anyway, but the Minister is effectively silent on the decimation of ground crew that will take place.

The Minister should address the fact that previous so-called legal guarantees and letters of comfort were given to people as assurances that could not be broken, yet they were broken. The Supreme Court adjudicated that they were broken and the CEO of Aer Lingus at the time, Mr. Willie Walsh, ignored those Supreme Court directives. Where has the Minister got these magic guarantees that nobody else in the history of humanity has ever got?

I am delighted that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, has joined us because the appalling lack of Labour Deputies has been quite striking. I can only ascertain that the reason this is being rammed through is that they want to protect themselves from workers in the communities involved. I am sorry to disappoint them, but that is not going to happen.

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