‘Irritating’ O’Leary angers O’Rourke
The present travails of the boss of the no-frills airline received little sympathy from his former arch-nemesis Ms O’Rourke.
Defending her stance against Mr O’Leary when she was transport minister from 1997 to 2002, Ms O’Rourke promised to include the saga in her forthcoming book.
During bitter personal clashes with Mr O’Leary, Ms O’Rourke was depicted sitting in a bath in an infamous Ryanair advertisement. But yesterday, she told the Seanad the wheel had now turned and she always knew long-running subsidies were not legal.
Responding to reports that the European Commission is due to find against Ryanair in a ruling on airport subsidies, the leader of the Seanad said this was the area causing the row.
“Aer Rianta operates a three-year system for new airlines and new routes. However, that is different from a plain subsidy which is what small towns were bullied into giving to get these routes.
“This is the very matter on which I fell out with a particular gentleman who wanted me to engage in incorrect behaviour by extending the subvention period for many years,” she said. The senator said there was a clear difference between the types of subvention and she was always clear about it.
Meanwhile, Mr O’Leary was described as irritating by one of the EU Commissioners studying whether the airline benefited from state aid.
Belgian Philippe Busquin, who is Commissioner for Research, was commenting on the leaking of the commission’s judgment on the case during the week.
Ryanair said they could be forced to repay up to €13m to the Walloon regional government which owns Charleroi airport in Belgium.
Mr Busquin said in an interview to a Belgian newspaper yesterday that the commission had never mentioned figures. “O’Leary is playing poker. He is terribly irritating and irritates the commissioners. We have never spoken of exact figures,” he was quoted as saying.
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