Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

Mr. Cook resigned over the Iraq war. It is not good enough to go on national radio telling the public she is against the Bill and afterwards vote for it. I urge Members on the opposite side who have severe difficulties with the Bill to, at least, abstain when it comes to the vote, because otherwise they will have no credibility and they will do politics a disservice. Talk is cheap but we will be judged by our voting records.

It is worth noting that Aer Rianta reported profits of €20.2 million in 2003, while turnover increased from €420 million to €436 million. The Government and taxpayers will get a dividend of €6.1 million from the 2003 profits. This is why it is important to debate carefully all the issues and ensure we are making the correct decision. We must avoid the mistakes of the past, for example, what happened in the Eircom privatisation scheme. The question everyone is asking is why has the Minister insisted on the legislation going through and why did he not simply ask the three airport authorities, Cork, Shannon and Dublin, to draw up their up plans and proposals and present them to him. We would then be better informed and have some idea what the main issues will be.

Fine Gael has consistently stated that it supports the decision to establish three independent boards to manage the airports, which will have a positive benefit, not just for the aviation sector but for regional policy. Independently managed airports at Cork, Shannon and Dublin would represent great potential for development and facilitate the involvement of local commercial interests in the development of airport services. However, we have not been provided with any supporting evidence by the Minister that airports such as Cork and Shannon, with passenger volumes of two million each year, can be viable as stand-alone entities, even though international studies suggest this could be the case. If we want real competition, we should focus on the key issue in that regard, namely, the second terminal at Dublin Airport, and not the break-up of Aer Rianta. This is the only way to provide for real competition.

The proposition of the break-up of Aer Rianta as a mechanism for providing competition is misleading. It is a mechanism for developing regional policy, if that is the objective of the Government. We still do not know where the Government is going with this policy. The Minister and the Government's pathetic record in respect of the second terminal at Dublin Airport does not inspire confidence in his plan to break up Aer Rianta. This has been shown by the aggressive and effective advertisements in our broadsheets in recent months by Michael O'Leary.

The Bill proposes that the new airport authorities at Shannon and Cork will compete directly with Dublin Airport. However, overall control will continue to be exercised from Dublin for a short period after the dissolution of Aer Rianta. How can one be certain that the Dublin Airport Authority will act in the best interests of the other two State airports before they are granted full independence. It is akin to the Minister being appointed to a Fine Gael general election strategy committee. It is ridiculous because Cork and Shannon will be competitors for Dublin in the future, yet for the next few months Dublin will make important decisions that could have an impact later. There must be a guarantee that board members of the Cork and Shannon Airport Authorities can contribute to decisions made on the Dublin Airport Authority before the break-up of Aer Rianta is complete. Otherwise members of the new Dublin Airport Authority could ensure in the months leading up to the final break-up of Aer Rianta that decisions made will directly affect Cork and Shannon post April 2005.

Questions still remain unanswered as to what structures will be put in place for Aer Rianta subsidiaries, such as Aer Rianta International and the ownership of the Great Southern Hotel group. I am sure my colleague, Senator Coghlan, will speak at length on that issue. It is worth noting that Aer Rianta International operates in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Sofia and Birmingham. In North America it has operations in New York, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa and Halifax. In the Middle East it operates in Bahrain, Kuwait, Damascus, Beirut, Qatar and Muscat. It also operates 14 speciality fashion, gift and gourmet shops at terminal 4 in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

There is grave concern in the Shannon area about the future of Aer Rianta International. As the Minister is aware, the international head office is currently located in Shannon Airport in County Clare. People are asking where it will end up after the break-up. Most people are, I presume, in favour of it remaining in Shannon.

This Bill will have major implications for taxpayers, the workers directly employed by Aer Rianta and the travelling public. We should be careful how we proceed in this matter. The absence of business plans and the mixed signals from different reports, such as the PricewaterhouseCoopers report or the Farrell Grant Sparks report commissioned by the unions, which suggested that the combined value of Shannon and Cork Airports will drop by €110 million following the break-up, are very worrying. We seem to be approaching this from the wrong direction. It would have been far more sensible to have the business plans produced first and then take a decision based on these. The privatisation of one airport in Canada had disastrous consequences resulting in its reversion to public ownership. There are issues of grave concern.

We are being asked to take a leap into the dark and this is totally unsatisfactory from everyone's point of view. Aer Rianta is much more than just a company. It also ensures passenger safety at airports. In light of the constant threat of terrorism, we should ensure we do nothing that could endanger the general public.