Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications is to have hearings on the sale of Aer Lingus to British Airways. I commend the Chairman, Deputy John O'Mahony. The examination of the sale announced in the House yesterday by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport involves a review body involving NewERA, two investment banks and one of the big four solicitor firms. What on earth does this group know about aviation? Happily, the Minister has a distinguished record in this field of study. The review body is tilted all the wrong way and it will require the skills of the joint committee, this House and the Minister to outweigh the imbalance in the review body. The review body will try to sell it - that is what NewERA does - and will not look at the consequences.

I welcome the intervention of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland today pointing out the importance of Aer Lingus to Belfast. As I pointed out yesterday, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast have been neglected. We are told that British Airways will not continue that policy of neglecting regions when it takes over Aer Lingus. Heathrow is still growing and is growing faster than any of the big airports in the London area. I see this as a threat to the north Atlantic routes where we have 2.4 million passengers. Scotland, which has a larger population, has about 400,000 passengers. That is the British Airways record. We want to be very careful before we get involved with that particular group at the behest of bankers. Speaking about timing, one of the banks outsourced jobs to Texas today, so having it adjudicate on where the Aer Lingus jobs will be outsourced is a dangerous strategy.

I also welcome the statement by the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, a distinguished Irish-Canadian who gave an address at the Department of Foreign Affairs last night. Mr. Carney was previously Governor of the Bank of Canada. He was honouring the distinguished Irish-Canadian Jim Flaherty, a former Canadian finance Minister. Mr. Carney's message to Germany in particular was that federalism involves duties, responsibilities and obligations on the rich countries who should stop lecturing places like Greece, Portugal and occasionally Ireland.