RYANAIR HAS called on Aer Lingus to furnish shareholders with a copy of the external review of the controversial leave and return redundancy scheme from 2008, which resulted in the airline having to settle a tax bill of €30 million with the Revenue Commissioners earlier this year.
“All Aer Lingus shareholders are entitled to be made aware of the findings of this report, who was responsible for this misuse of shareholder funds, its recommendations and what the board proposes to do to ensure that such a €30 million debacle does not recur,” Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said in a letter to Aer Lingus chairman Colm Barrington on September 13th.
The letter was released yesterday in a stock exchange announcement.
The report, which followed investigations by Deloitte and McCann FitzGerald, was presented to the board of Aer Lingus, which has decided not to circulate it to shareholders.
Ryanair also called on Aer Lingus to pay a special dividend of €110 million to shareholders this year.
It said Aer Lingus had “excessive” cash reserves, which increased in the first half of this year by €34 million.
The airline said this would “reward Aer Lingus’s long-suffering shareholders”.
As Aer Lingus’s largets shareholder with a stake of 29.8 per cent, Ryanair would be the biggest beneficiary of such a dividend, earning €32.8 million.
In addition, Ryanair wants the Aer Lingus board to follow through on assurances that it would not make any payments to its pension fund “over and above its existing” commitments.
The pension scheme is jointly operated with the Dublin Airport Authority and aircraft maintenance group SR Technics, which has pulled out of Ireland.
The deficit in the scheme was “at least” €400 million at the end of 2010, Aer Lingus said recently.
When contacted by The Irish Times about the Ryanair letter yesterday, Mr Barrington said: “We will be responding directly in due course.”
Mr O’Leary requested a response to his letter within seven days.
