Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today defended the decision to part-privatise Aer Lingus by saying it would secure its future.
The State is to sell its majority shareholding in the airline as soon as preparations for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the stock market are completed.
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In a heated debate in the Dáil, Mr Ahern pointed out that many other national airlines had gone bankrupt in the extremely competitive aviation market.
"The issue is to try and allow Aer Lingus to grow and expand where possible.
"The best way for ensuring that Aer Lingus does not go the way of the other airlines all over the world, including very strong companies like Swiss Air, is to try and allow the company to grow and to prosper," he said.
He said it would be good for customers, good for the airline and good for the economy.
But Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said that people should remember what had happened since Telecom Eireann was privatised.
"Look what has happened to our telecommunications infrastructure. Look what has happened to the roll-out of broadband, where we have slipped from second near the top of the table to the bottom," he said.
He said there was no clarity about when the IPO would take place and questioned whether the "accident prone" Minister for Transport Martin Cullen was the right person to oversee such a major change.
Bertie Ahern responds to Joe HIggins
"Would you buy a second-hand voting system from this minister," he asked.
Mr Ahern had to wait while the Ceann Comhairle Rory O'Hanlon asked an angry Mr Cullen to stop interrupting, but he soon became embroiled in a row with Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins.
Mr Higgins said the decision to part-privatise Aer Lingus was one of the most outstanding acts of economic treachery carried out by any government in the history of the State.
He said there had been not a whimper of opposition from the local Fianna Fail backbenchers and made a pointed reference to the party's Dublin North TD Jim Glennon, a former rugby international.
"A collapsed rugby scrum would emit more intelligible grunts than the Fianna Fail deputies. If the citizens of North Dublin had sent in cabbages from the local vegetable farms to decorate the benches behind the Taoiseach, they would get more decent representation in opposition to the Aer Lingus privatisation plans," he said.
Mr Higgins accused Mr Ahern of throwing Aer Lingus to the mercy of corporate sharks and vultures.
But in reply, he said Mr Higgins wanted to keep the airline down rather than allowing it to grow.
"You would like to have it and be proud of the fact that when the open skies policies of Europe open up, Aer Lingus will continue to be able just to fly into five airports in the United States, with no opportunity to develop.
"You would rather that the workers were always the slaves of the capitalist class. The fact that they can own shares and take pride in the company is something you're opposed to. But your ideology, Deputy Higgins, is gone in the most Eastern parts of the Communist world".
PA