Public urged to use vote threat on €100m airport debt issue

MEMBERS of the public were urged yesterday to tell Government parties they will vote against them unless they do a U-turn on Cork Airport’s €100 million debt.

Standing orders were suspended at a meeting of Cork County Council after angry opposition members derided Fianna Fáil over the broken promise.

And members of council voted last night to seek a meeting with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he visits Cork on Friday.

Mr Ahern is due to meet with Labour Lord Mayor Michael Ahern.

But Cllr Mick O’Connell said councillors want answers from the “highest level” about why the Government wants to saddle the airport with a €100m debt.

During the county council meeting, Fine Gael Cllr Michael Creed brandished a letter sent on New Year’s Eve, 2003, in which then Transport Minister, Seamus Brennan’s private secretary, Dermot Murphy, told John McAleer, director of the South-West Regional Authority, that both Cork and Shannon airports would commence independence free of debt.

The letter went on to state debts included in the major investment programme at Cork Airport “would remain with Dublin Airport”.

Mr Murphy also wrote that “these arrangements will ensure that the new airport companies at Shannon and Cork will have sound balance sheets”.

Cllr Creed said the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) had already profited to the tune of €270m from the sell-off of the Great Southern Hotels group and he claimed DAA now wanted to sell off land adjacent to Cork Airport. He said this land was worth €30m and DAA wanted to pocket this as well.

His party colleague, Cllr Gerry Kelly, said there had been “very shabby treatment of the people of the second city”, while FG Cllr Tom Sheahan said that it was a “slap in the face” to the Government’s National Spatial Strategy, which suggested the Cork region was to be an economic powerhouse like the east coast. Cllr Sheahan also expressed concern that despite a major increase in passenger traffic the airport still lost around €5m last year.

The recent loss of the Swansea-Cork ferry service, added to the debt announcement, was a double blow to the region, according to Cllr Paddy Sheehan. He said when he was Mayor of County Cork, the then Transport Minister, Seamus Brennan, had told him the airport would not have a debt hanging over it.

Fianna Fáil councillors Alan Coleman, Deirdre Forde and Kevin O’Keeffe tried to defend the Government but were repeatedly attacked by Fine Gael and Labour. Labour Cllr Paula Desmond described the Government U-turn as “economic and political treachery”.

“The Government can change that decision, or be accountable. Potentially it’s hugely damaging for Cork. Unless the public make their demands clear before the General Election, the Government won’t do a U-turn,” she added.

It was decided the Mayor of County Cork would ask his counterpart in the city to seek a joint deputation with Transport Minister Martin Cullen to discuss the issue.

Last night, following a meeting of the main union officers at Cork Airport, a spokesman for SIPTU said they were requesting a meeting with chief executive Pat Keohane in advance of this coming Thursday’s board meeting. The unions were anxious to reiterate the depth of feeling of the members with regard to promises made but not yet delivered, he said.