The Minister for Transport has sought a briefing from Aer Lingus on the current pensions row at the firm. But Mr Brennan has signalled that he would prefer Aer Lingus management and workers to solve the issue without his involvement. "Aer Lingus had been working hard to restore itself to viability. I don't want to interfere too much," he said.

Mr Brennan's request for a briefing from Aer Lingus followed last week's revelations that worker directors at Aer Lingus had refused to sign off on the firm's accounts due to disagreements over pensions provision.

SIPTU and IMPACT, the largest Aer Lingus unions, contend that the status of the company's pensions scheme has been changed from defined-benefit to defined-contribution without their consent. The airline's most recent annual report makes reference to a "targeted-benefit scheme".

Mr Brennan said he would adopt a similar hands-off stance if a comparable issue arose at Aer Rianta, one of the four entities that share the Irish Airlines (General Employees) Superannuation Scheme and the Irish Airlines (Pilots) Superannuation Scheme with Aer Lingus.

Aer Rianta is in the process of preparing accounts for 2002, with worker directors at the company due to be asked to sign off on the numbers before the end of this month. An Aer Rianta spokeswoman said it would be impossible to predict how unions would act at that time.

The spokeswoman confirmed that Aer Rianta had not yet moved to establish its own defined-benefit scheme, despite an indication in the company's 2001 report that this would occur.

Such a scheme, if established, would operate separately to the scheme shared with Aer Rianta.

The financial position of the shared scheme is currently unclear since an actuarial valuation has not been carried out since 2000. At that time, the scheme held funds equivalent to 130 per cent of requirements but this is likely to have since been eroded by sustained declines in the equity markets.