Shane Ross (Independent)

I thank Senator Leyden for the cue. I was going to call on the Minister for Transport to come to the House to apologise for the Aer Lingus flotation but, as Senator Leyden said, resignation would probably be more appropriate in these circumstances. There is an unanswerable case for the Leader to talk to her less salubrious successor and ask him to come to the House, not just to apologise for the complete cock-up that has been made of the Aer Lingus flotation but to account for some of the events that occurred because nobody understands why they happened or what was the sequence of events that caused them to happen. It will be quite remarkable if we cannot get an explanation from the Minister why the Government sold a company at €2.20 per share only for the shares to be bought at €3.05 each a week later. It is an extraordinary situation and answers are required because this involves taxpayer's money. The Seanad could do the taxpayer a service by inviting the Minister to the House for a question and answer session about how and why this happened. Nobody in the country understands it. Senator O'Toole and Senator Ryan put their fingers on this. There is almost unanimity on all sides of the political spectrum that this flotation was botched in an inexcusable way. While they are an easy but justifiable target, there is also unanimity that the €30 million payment to advisers was outrageous. It was a straightforward robbery of people who did not understand they were being robbed.