It is important to disentangle the national interest in the future of Aer Lingus both from ideological issues, and also from the private interests of management and staff, argues Garret FitzGerald
Because of Ireland's location as an island on the periphery of Europe that lacks either bridge or tunnel connection with anywhere else, air transport is more important to us than to any other European state.
And the fact that we are on the direct route between northern Europe and North America adds to the significance of air transport to our economy.
In trying to decide where our national interest lies in relation to Aer Lingus there seem to me to be two key issues: First, how best to ensure that the airline secures in an appropriate form the finance necessary for its further expansion; and, second, how to ensure that its crucially important - and very valuable - slots at Heathrow are preserved for Anglo-Irish flights.
Subject to those two prime national requirements, the interests of its staff, who have contributed so much to its success, and latterly to its survival, must also be a major factor in any decision taken.
The ideological debate on privatisation that some on both sides of the issue are clearly anxious to engage in is in my view a red herring.
Experience in the 1950s and again in the last couple of years has shown that as a State airline Aer Lingus is capable of being outstandingly efficient - whilst at the other extreme it has at times been almost as inefficient as some US privately-owned airlines which disappeared, such as Pan Am, TWA and Eastern.
The determinant of success is the quality of management, which can be equally good and bad under either ownership system.
It is true that in the past Aer Lingus has suffered from misplaced Government interference, and also from having its board loaded with inadequate political appointees. But EU constraints on future state aid should deter future governments from such malpractices - a repetition of which could now land a government that indulged itself in this way with the stigma of having bankrupted the national airline.
There seems to have been an ideological attempt to suggest that in some way EU law forbids the Government to invest in Aer Lingus. This is, of course, quite false.
The Government would be precluded from any further bail-out of the airline, should it again get into financial difficulties - for EU competition policy requires that, regardless of whether it is state-owned or privately-owned, it must compete on equal terms with other airlines.
But the state is perfectly entitled to invest in further expansion of the airline, should it wish to do so, and two major capital injections into Iberia in 1996 and 1999, in the context of a proposal to privatise that company, were in fact ruled by the European Commission not to be state aid.
So, if any Government source seeks for ideological reasons to insinuate that the EU represents an obstacle to state investment in the future growth of the national airline, that allegation should not be accorded credibility.
But that is not to say that, if the airline remains in state ownership, it will in fact succeed in securing from the state the financing it may need to expand its services. For the state is proverbially a poor investor in its own assets, and some of Aer Lingus's past traumas have undoubtedly derived from the state's refusal to subscribe additional capital when it was needed and might have been put to profitable use.
There is ample evidence that, despite our economic success, the state - which for this purpose means the Minister and Department of Finance - remains most reluctant to invest in state enterprise. In part this derives from some bad past experiences with certain investments in state companies that were badly run by sometimes incompetent political appointees, or which other elements in the government system sought to bolster irresponsibly to preserve non-viable jobs.
And, in part, this reluctance reflects the persistent pressure Finance Ministers come under to give priority to current spending, sometimes at the expense of worthwhile investment.
Private/public partnerships, which are currently popular with politicians, may in some cases prove more efficient than the state at organising a project, but our Minister for Finance, supported by the PDs, is currently showing signs of favouring such projects for short-term financial reasons - succumbing to financial short-termism despite the long-term cost such arrangements may impose upon the Exchequer. Some private interests, seeking a high return on their money, seem at present to be rubbing their hands at the prospect of cashing in on this political short-termism
It is because the state is such a reluctant, and also such a volatile, investor that a state enterprise with rapid growth prospects may be better off if it is enabled to draw on the private sector for its capital needs.
I have to say that if I were today what I was 50 years ago, an Aer Lingus staff member, with bitter memories of past capital starvation by the state, I would not be too enthusiastic at the prospect of depending upon the Department of Finance for resources to achieve a dynamic growth of our national airline.
On the other hand, although privatisation might offer a better prospect of finance for expansion, it also has a potential downside. A privately-owned Aer Lingus would be vulnerable to being taken over by a large airline like British Airways, which could make a lot of money at the expense of this island by redeploying the Aer Lingus slots at Heathrow to its long-haul services.
If our access to and through Heathrow was to be lost in this way, the impact on our economy could be more severe.
Despite the fact that there are now almost 80 daily flights scheduled between the Continent and Ireland, as well as a dozen to and from North America each day, last year almost 800,000 visitors to Ireland came through Britain - 335,000 from North America, 210,000 from continental Europe and 250,000 from other parts of the world.
Moreover, almost 700,000 Irish people travelled abroad via Britain. And most of those 1.5 million passengers went through Heathrow.
Whatever solution is to be found for Aer Lingus's future it must be one that safeguards these two vital interests - securing the airline's financial requirements for expansion, especially to North America and overseas, and the protection of its Heathrow slots. These seem to me to be the key issues that the Government needs to confront - ignoring pressures from both ideologues and interested parties.