Jim Higgins (Fine Gael)

Like other speakers, I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy McDaid, to the House. I support this good Bill, which was in gestation for a considerable time. I vividly recall being opposite the leader of the House in the Dáil when she was Minister for Public Enterprise. The Aer Lingus Bill had gone through the Seanad and had to be abandoned because of 11 September 2001. At the time, the outlook for Aer Lingus could not have been more bleak. Airlines were falling like nine pins all over the world. Some much larger carriers in the world, which ten years previously appeared to be even more viable and profitable than Aer Lingus, went to the wall literally overnight. The Minister's hands were literally tied from the point of view of putting together any kind of rescue package because of EU rules and regulations.