Amid calls for his resignation over the latest twist in the Shannon airport saga, Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has blamed "human error" for the fact that he remained unaware of a crucial memo in his department for six weeks.
In the Dáil yesterday, Opposition politicians refused to accept Mr Dempsey's insistence that he remained in the dark for six weeks about the document marked for the attention of the Minister, or that he was not informed of its contents.
The document was drafted on June 13th, the day before Mr Dempsey moved to the Department of Transport, by the assistant secretary of the department, John Murphy.
It outlined details of a conversation between Mr Murphy and Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion about the possible move to Belfast. The disclosure of the document's existence, in response to a Dáil question from Fine Gael TD Kieran O'Donnell and a Freedom of Information request, has reignited the Shannon controversy almost three months after it began and put the Fianna Fáil TDs in the midwest region under renewed pressure.
A special briefing session on the Shannon issue given by the Minister on Wednesday night was attended by 24 TDs and Senators and renewed anger was expressed at the way the whole matter had been handled.
The Government will come under further pressure in the Dáil next week as the Opposition parties seek to establish the precise sequence of events in advance of the announcement by Aer Lingus on August 8th that it was going to move its Shannon-Heathrow slots to Belfast.
In the Dáil yesterday, Mr Dempsey told Opposition TDs that the reason he was not given the June 13th document was due to human error in the Department of Transport and the matter was now the subject of a report.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said later that the report will be completed in two weeks at the latest. It will be the responsibility of the secretary general of the department, Julie O'Neill.
The Minister will remain under pressure on three key issues. Firstly, how it came about that he was not made aware of the June 13th memo, secondly why there was no reference to the issue in either the written or the oral briefing given to him when he took over the department and thirdly why he continued to insist that the first he knew of the matter was on August 3rd, when he met senior Aer Lingus officials, when his private office had received a memo about the planned move to Belfast on July 27th.
In the Dáil yesterday, Mr Dempsey said that on July 27th, Aer Lingus confirmed it would be setting up a new base in Belfast, but he was not aware of the decision to reallocate all the Heathrow slots to Belfast until August 3rd.
Mr Dempsey took over as Minster for Transport on June 14th, a day after the document was written, but his predecessor, Martin Cullen, said yesterday that he had not been made aware of it either.
Meanwhile last night it emerged that the Taoiseach has written a letter in support of an airline that has made an application for slots to operate between Shannon and Heathrow. In a letter to Peter Morrisroe, OBE, managing director of AstraeusAirlines, Mr Ahern said "the Irish Government is supportive of all efforts that will restore connectivity between Heathrow and Shannon."
