Seanad Report: Mr Feargal Quinn (Independent) told the Seanad yesterday that he did not welcome the State Airports Bill because he believed there was no sense behind it.
"I can't help thinking that when the economic history of Ireland in this decade comes to be written at some future point, this project will be singled out as one of the great follies of our time."
Mr Tim Dooley (FF) said he would have preferred a restructured Aer Rianta working in conjunction with three separate boards for each of the airports, providing "a family-type approach". The Government had decided to go down another road, which he had to accept. However, he welcomed the statement that the airports would remain in State ownership.
Mr Derek McDowell (Lab) said that he would not join in condemnation of the leaking of information relating to Aer Rianta's funding arrangements.
The expectation was that the creditors would essentially waive their rights to call in loans in default in the circumstances which were set out in the default clauses. However, they knew from the advice that had been given to the company that that could be expensive. But if it was going to cause an additional expense and if there were serious potential downsides, then the House should have been informed about it before now and it should have more detailed information from the Minister as to how he envisaged that they could get out of it.
"There is a potential serious negative here and one that should be cleared up at the earliest possible time."
Mr Paul Coghlan (FG) said that the Bill was merely a face-saving exercise by the Minister and was not driven by any coherent policy decision.
Mr Shane Ross (Ind) said it was time for the Taoiseach to explain his role behind the scenes in the handling of the Aer Rianta matter.
Was he behind what the Minister for Transport and other ministers had pushed for the future of the airports authority? Or was the Taoiseach a "fifth columnist" backing the trade union agenda at Cabinet, Mr Ross asked.
He said: "When the Minister announced his original plans for Aer Rianta it was obvious that the board (of Aer Rianta) did not approve. I cannot understand why he did not sack the Aer Rianta chairman, Mr Noel Hanlon.
It was an extraordinary act of weakness to allow the board to stay in office while it continued to thwart his wishes. As a result, there has been a stand-off for two years".