Oireachtas

No plan received to sell TEAM, Yates told

No proposals have been made by the Aer Lingus board to the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, about the possible sale…

Fri Feb 06 1998 - 00:00

No proposals have been made by the Aer Lingus board to the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, about the possible sale of TEAM Aer Lingus to FLS Aerospace, the Dail heard.

Mr Joe Jacob, Minister of State for Public Enterprise, said Ms O'Rourke had already clearly stated there would be "no strategic developments" in TEAM without the "concurrence" of TEAM employees.

The junior Minister, standing in for Ms O'Rourke, was responding to Fine Gael's Public Enterprise spokesman, Mr Ivan Yates, who accused the Minister of "sitting on the fence" in relation to the TEAM aircraft maintenance company.

Mr Yates wanted to know what "worker concurrence" meant exactly. He said the Minister had "one eye on self-preservation and the other eye on the Dublin North by-election", where TEAM Aer Lingus was a major issue.

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Mr Yates said there were media reports of a "threat" to TEAM workers. If they rejected the proposed sale of TEAM to FLS Aerospace, a £65 million loan from Aer Lingus to TEAM would be revoked.

The loan was advanced in 1995, he said, and was to be reviewed this year.

He asked if this threat was real or unfounded and he called on the Minister to give "realistic, forthright and straight answers".

The Minister could not say it was a matter for the company and that the Government did not know the state of play. "She [Ms O'Rourke] is the sole shareholder and the reality is that she should know what is going on."

Replying for Ms O'Rourke, Mr Jacob said the Dail was aware Aer Lingus announced it had identified FLS Aerospace as its preferred investor.

"The deputy will appreciate that all the issues surrounding the possible sale of TEAM to FLS are currently being addressed by management and employee representatives and are varied and complex," said Mr Jacob.

"It would be inappropriate to comment on those issues in advance of receiving any formal proposal from the board of the Aer Lingus group in the matter." He repeated, however, that "no proposals have yet been made to the Minister in this regard".

Ms O'Rourke had already indicated to both management and unions that "any agreement to sell TEAM will require the agreement of the workforce in the company".