Enda Kenny has admitted that he had not read an internal Aer Lingus document on the sale of the airline that indicated job losses of up to 40 per cent for catering employees, ground staff and maintenance crews.
But in a strong defence of the sale of the national airline, the Taoiseach insisted Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports supported the move as being good for Ireland.
Mr Kenny said 635 jobs would be created at Aer Lingus, with an increase of almost 2.5 million passengers. Four new routes to North America would be in place by 2020 and tourism would grow “by serious amounts in the next 10 years”.
He also stressed that the Minister for Finance would have a veto over the sale of the valuable Heathrow slots under the deal with IAG, which owns British Airways.
During Leaders' Questions yesterday, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin asked if the Taoiseach had seen the Nyras report commissioned by Aer Lingus and IAG. It compared the airline with low-cost operators such as Vueling and EasyJet and showed it had a 40 per cent higher cost base.
Eastern outsourcing
Mr Martin said the report referred to a 20 per cent cut in ground-handling staff, 40 per cent reductions in catering, and a 25 per cent cut in heavy maintenance by outsourcing it to eastern Europe.
Mr Kenny acknowledged he had not read the report on the impact of the proposed sale. “I did not see the report you refer to. Neither did the Minister for Transport.”
Mr Martin said to Mr Kenny: “This is what Aer Lingus and IAG are cooking up and you haven’t been told about it.”
But the Taoiseach reminded the Fianna Fáil leader of his party’s decision in government to privatise Aer Lingus in 2006, following which the Heathrow slots moved from Shannon to Belfast without any government control. But the Minister for Finance now had a veto on the sale of the Heathrow slots, he said.
Confirm veto
Fianna Fáil transport spokesman Timmy Dooley intervened several times to ask: “Taoiseach, can you confirm the word ‘veto’?”
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams claimed Aer Lingus “has been shamefully sabotaged by you and your Government” and had handed over the national airline “lock, stock and barrel to a multinational”.
He said that “once Aer Lingus is gone, it’s gone” and that when IAG took over the Spanish carrier Iberia, 4,500 jobs were cut.
Independent Socialist and former Aer Lingus employee Clare Daly said the 15,000 deferred pension holders in Aer Lingus could only come to the conclusion that that the manoeuvring around that scheme was to "get that out of the way so you could get what you wanted all along".
She said the Government was selling for €1.3 billion a company that had almost €1 billion in cash reserves and Heathrow slots worth €500 million, as well as all its airport property and the brand and product.
Ms Daly said that a million passengers in Britain were transited to the United States through Dublin Airport, and that this was part of the benefits of the sale to corporate shareholders in Europe and the Middle East.
Mr Kenny insisted new jobs would be created and four new routes to the US were going ahead. He said he was hopeful that Ireland would benefit from the sale.
