Republican News · Thursday 25 October 2001

O'Rourke's sham Aer Lingus rescue plan

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

Mary O'Rourke finally and belatedly announced her so-called rescue package for Aer Lingus this week. Over 2,000 redundancies are proposed to generate annual payroll savings of £45 million, with another £100 million needed to be pruned from the airline's budget. Unions have until the end of November to negotiate the cost cutting plan. Alongside this was the announcement this week that the Dublin Government is seeking buyers for a 35% share in the airline.

Yesterday, hundreds of Aer Lingus workers walked to Leinster House to protest at the flawed rescue plan, which though demanding compulsory job losses offers no redundancy payments for workers.

Apart from creating a back door privatisation of the company and the parallel issue of not being able to stand up to the EU, which is refusing to let member states bail out their airline companies, O'Rourke's plan and that of new chief executive Willie Walsh has one other crucial flaw. It makes no reference to the real cause of failures at the state airline.

It would be nice to lay all of Aer Lingus' ailments at the door of the 11 September tragedy or even on the negative effects of a tourist season devastated by Foot and Mouth. That though, would be a denial of a long term and systematic management failure at the company. Aer Lingus was in crisis at the beginning of the 1970s and then underwent a major rationalisation plan, yet here we are less than ten years later with exactly the same problem again at the airline. Yes, the airline made profit during an unprecedented economic boom, but that is not a very demanding test.

So who is to blame? Well we could look at those who appointed this management and those who legislative job it is to monitor and oversee the proper and efficient running of Aer Lingus. This brings us straight back to Mary O'Rourke's door.

It is the failure of successive Public Enterprise ministers and the governments they are part of. In recent weeks we have seen the evidence presented at the now suspended CIE rail-signaling enquiry. It clearly shows an inefficient and badly run public company with successive ministers either unwilling or unable to oversee the proper running of the company.

Then we have the Eircom privatisation and the subsequent debacle over its share price fall and prolonged auction to new owners who have never been asked to show the public their long-term vision of how they propose to develop a vital national resource.

Then we have the ESB, whose own development plans were vetoed by the coalition while no serious plans have been brought forward to deal with the critical power supply problems in the West and North West.

The conclusion one has to draw from all of these crises is a failure in government, with not just the minister but also the entire coalition. We don't need to sell off Aer Lingus. A bargain basement fire sale for the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat coalition would be much more appropriate.