Shane Ross (Independent)

I welcome the change. However, no doubt the Fianna Fáil sycophants will appear from the woodwork towards the end of this debate. They are somewhere in the rearguard ready to come and support the plan. I would hate to embarrass the Minister for Transport by being the first Member to support his Bill. I may well be the only one to do so if no other Member is prepared to fill that role. It looks as if supporters will be lacking in this debate.

The history of Aer Rianta is shameful. Few Members are prepared to say that because Aer Rianta has been a political satellite of the political parties for many years. As a result, it has been allowed to be an economic, commercial and political monopoly for as long as I can remember. That has resulted in it making notional profits while being left alone to plough its own furrow in an easy economic situation with no competition. I applaud the Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, for taking on this monopoly with a radical look at the vested interests involved. Aer Rianta was rotten in its structure from top to bottom because of its monopolistic structure and the political patronage that directed its non-existent commercial mandate. This will be tackled by the Bill.

The Minister cannot obviously say what exactly directed his thinking into setting up three airport authorities. However, the Bill, though I do not fully support it, is a recognition of the ugly monster that Aer Rianta was and an attempt to slay it one way or the other. It is a first step in setting Aer Rianta on the commercial path which the body itself failed to address. The Bill is not one I would have introduced because I would have hoped it would go a good deal further. However, due to the political difficulties faced by the Minister, it is probably as far as he can go.

Why must three airport authorities be established? I understand the theory that they should compete with each other. However, reading the Minister's speech reminded me of what the former Senator, Professor Joe Lee, said to me after we shared a room for five years. He told me that while he listened to my speeches and read my articles, sometimes in agreement and other times in disagreement, he never saw any evidence in them supporting my arguments. I suggest the Minister is in the same situation. He has produced a solution but it is lacking in evidence to show it will work. There are no good business reasons as to why Cork or Shannon Airports will survive on their own or compete with Dublin Airport. This Bill is a step in the dark. If it does not work, the Government will once again have to pick up the pieces. No big risks are being taken in this Bill. Whereas there may be problems for Cork or Shannon Airports, there is no doubt that the Government will be forced to rescue them because of backbench political murmurings which the Government has to put up with every time it makes a move on Aer Lingus or Aer Rianta. Let us not applaud this Bill as some giant step but acknowledge it more as a step in the dark — a step backwards if it does not work — and more an act of faith.

The leaks, referred to by the Minister, in the newspapers over the last few days tell us much about Aer Rianta. It is beyond belief to suggest that those leaks came from Department of Transport. It was not in the Minister's interests that the leaked information about the particular letter he referred to came from him or anyone close to him. The leaks were not only embarrassing to him but also threatened the passage of the Bill today. The leaks then must have come from sources close to Aer Rianta. If that is the case, it tells us an untenable situation exists, of a semi-State body leaking so as to manoeuvre against the wishes of the Minister and by implication the Government, which cannot be allowed to continue. Aer Rianta, as every Member knows, yet cannot say, has gone walkabout. Aer Rianta has been running an independent republic for the last two years. This is not the first leak from Aer Rianta sources in order to thwart the Government's wishes. There was another leak not so long ago which was unfair, unjustifiable and untrue and did not come from the Minister.