CORK Airport is facing potentially crippling debts of €160 million when it opens for business as a separate company, it emerged last night.

WITH the future of Ireland's three main airports in the balance, there is more than a whiff of truth in Labour's charge that the Government is deliberately keeping the text of the Bill for the break up of AerRianta under wraps until after the elections.

THE rift between the Government and SIPTU over Tánaiste Mary Harney’s controversial weekend remarks on transport reform moved no closer to being resolved yesterday.

THE debate (Irish Examiner, March 19) on anti-privatisation entirely misses the key issue in the transport arena. The debate is not about ‘privatisation’, but about competition versus monopoly.

A former chief executive of the British Airports Authority (BAA), Mike Hodgkinson, is expected to be announced as a director of the newly formed Dublin airport company this week.

Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary has called on the army to implement a contingency plan to keep the airports open on Thursday ahead of threatened industrial action by SIPTU members.

LIKE all my colleagues in the Irish Prison Service, I was aghast to hear Justice Minister Michael McDowell announce the closure of two prisons and transfer the only remaining open centres to outside agencies.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has told the Dáil that gardaí are investigating how Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte got possession of a memo relating to the Government’s controversial plan to break Aer Rianta into three competing entities.

Officials at SIPTU are set to unveil plans today for industrial action at the country's three major airports.

MUNSTER is losing out on millions of tourists because of government dithering on reducing flying costs, Ryanair claimed yesterday.

AER RIANTA, which is discharging hundreds of tonnes of raw sewage daily into the Shannon Estuary, has been held by a High Court judge to be acting in breach of planning regulations.

The low-cost terminal at Dublin Airport has been given the go-ahead.

Over 3.4m passengers travelled through Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports during the first three months of the year, according to Aer Rianta.

Several hundred airport staff have stopped work in support of striking British Midland ground handling workers in the latest escalation of the four-week-old dispute over a decision to sell off the ground handling services at Dublin Airport.