Joe O'Toole (Independent)

When the news of the retirement of the three Aer Lingus executives broke, one would have thought only three people were working in Aer Lingus. It is all very well to say Mr. Walsh is a great entrepreneur, as Senator Ross has done, but Mr. Walsh received his training, career, future and everything he has from the public service. He has much to learn about the ethics of good governance. If he had acted as he did in a private sector company he would have been dismissed six months ago. Is it not appalling that the main stakeholder of a company — in this case the Taoiseach — should hear of a management buy-out proposal by his chief executive in the newspapers? This would not be accepted anywhere. Regulators would look very seriously at such a situation.

It is unbelievable that the chief stakeholder should read in the newspapers of a huge redundancy plan which had not been discussed with the Minister or with the Taoiseach. The fact that the three executives announced their retirement in the newspapers before discussing it with their main stakeholders reflects badly on these three men. They might have great difficulty finding employment in the future if this is how they treat their board and their stakeholders. These are the realities of life. Such an operation would not be acceptable in a private company.

The management team did a good job. However, they had the total support of their staff, the Government, the trade union movement and their board. This support was gained following tough negotiations but when given it was total. If one could not do a good job with that level of support one could never do a good job. What management team would have failed in such circumstances? The Minister's predecessors, including the Leader of the House, and previous governments have always been supportive of Aer Lingus.

Seats in north Dublin will not be determined by the ownership of Aer Lingus but by its viability. The days of long principled arguments about whether an enterprise should be in private or public hands have gone. We want a good service where workers are treated well and the State also has its control.

Icelandair is hoarding money at present and is looking for somewhere to spend it. The company has stakes in several FTSE 100 companies and more money than it can handle. Such an airline would look favourably at a possible investment in Aer Lingus. Iceland is a small country with much entrepreneurial zeal. I would not object if the Government attracts private investment in Aer Lingus. I am interested in the "hows" and not in "isms". The world has moved on from there.

I was glad to hear the Minister deal with the question of the replacement of staff. I would also like to hear about the costing of fleet replacement. Like Senator Dooley, I welcomed what the Minister said about transatlantic routes. However, I would be happier to see Shannon opening links to western and eastern Europe. An open skies policy is dependent on the United States Government, which put billions of dollars into supporting its airlines in the last three years. The US Government is notoriously anti-competitive. It has not allowed Canadian airlines to have access to the United States and has brought down the shutters on the steel industry. No other large market in the world has such protectionism. The US Government cannot be trusted to do deals on an open skies policy. I would prefer to see us looking eastward and towards Europe.

It is good that we have Aer Lingus and Ryanair. It should be noted that easyJet is opening new routes from Knock. In this regard I would like to know what deal Ryanair has done with Shannon. Can the Minister confirm that it would be utterly uncompetitive and against European regulation if a part of that deal prohibited easyJet for example, from getting a similar deal with Shannon?