Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

All of us are aware of the Government's decision last night to sell the 25% stake in Aer Lingus. Just to remind Members before the usual "75% was sold" is thrown back at me, the reason for the retention of the 25% was to protect the strategic interests of the State and Aer Lingus as an independent entity and, in particular, to ensure connectivity for this island nation and control over what happened to our main airline.

In the past 12 months, and particularly the past six months, this situation has been choreographed towards a sale. I will remind people of how I debated the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2013 in this Chamber with the current Tánaiste, Deputy Burton, when she started the attack on airport and Aer Lingus's pension scheme. That was the beginning of this process. The reason was to find a mechanism to wipe out a €740 million deficit in the pension scheme so as to make the company and the taxpayers' stake in it more attractive. For €340 million, the Government has effectively sacrificed Aer Lingus and airport pensioners - those who have taken 60% cuts in their pensions and 12-week cuts to their pensions in payments - and the 5,000 current workers who have been placed in an inferior pension scheme against their permission. This has all been done to facilitate a Labour and Fine Gael sale of the Aer Lingus stake for a grubby €340 million. Where is Labour in all of this? What of its seven Deputies who stated a short couple of months ago that they would not under any circumstance support a sale, including Deputies Ryan, Costello and so on? Where are Labour's principles on this matter?

The 25% stake was retained to protect the strategic interests of the State and the airline. That is a fact. What the Government is proposing to do is to sell that stake to IAG. It has received false and non-binding commitments on the retention of the Heathrow slots. If the 25% stake was retained, we would have influence over those. Now we will not. Cork and Shannon appear to have been thrown to the wolves. Let us not forget about them in all of this. Consider what has happened in other major airline takeovers. This will lead to a pooling of services and job losses. Aer Lingus's sphere of influence will move from Dublin to London.

From the word "Go", Fine Gael has been about selling State assets and privatisation. That does not surprise me. Fine Gael is not a party of the working person and never has been. It has always been interested in profit. What of Labour and the last vestiges of standing up for the working person and the airport as some of its members have pretended to do down the years and as others have done with distinction, including former Deputy Seán Ryan?What will he and his brother, Deputy Brendan Ryan, do now in this regard?