Feargal Quinn (Independent)

Just after the August bank holiday weekend last summer, an announcement was made about decisions made by Aer Lingus in respect of Shannon Airport. The people of Shannon and the west received a considerable amount of sympathy from all of us around the country because of the problems they would face. What happened last weekend? The airport closed for a small number of hours because of the actions of a small group of people. Perhaps they did so to hold passengers to ransom to achieve their own objectives. There are other ways of achieving those objectives through normal procedures. Those procedures have not been adopted.

We must remind those people in business and elsewhere, particularly if they are paid by the State, that we in a competitive marketplace. Shannon is in competition with Frankfurt, London, Paris and everywhere else. It is a bad idea for us to close the airport on a regular or even irregular basis for selfish intentions. There are procedures to be used and they should be. Let us make sure that we do not go back to the position we were in during the 1980s — the days of strikes where there were no procedures before social partnership.