Cork and Dublin ‘may suffer fate of Shannon’

SIPTU has issued a warning to business interests in Cork and Dublin that the Heathrow slots from their airports could suffer the same fate as those from Shannon.

“Management have already said the best return on the Heathrow slots is long haul,” said Willie Lynes of the union’s Aer Lingus branch speaking at an emergency motion at SIPTU’s biennial delegate conference in Tralee.

“We expect the next attack will be on the Dublin and Cork slots. We have a message for the chambers of commerce in Cork and Dublin. ‘Are you listening?’.”

Mr Lynes told delegates at the time of the Aer Lingus privatisation the union warned of what had transpired at Shannon.

“When we said at the time what would happen, they said ‘rubbish’. As a union we are fed up of saying we told you so,” he said.

SIPTU colleague Michael Clair said the Government and Aer Lingus should not be allowed to walk away from their obligations to the workers and the community in the south-west, west and mid-west.

“We are asking people to raise the Shannon issue with your public representatives. If they are allowed to get away with this, ordinary workers will pay for it with their livelihoods.”

Meanwhile, speaking at the conference, SIPTU national industrial secretary Michael Halpenny said news that BMI has decided it is not interested in providing a service from Shannon to Heathrow was “further evidence of the absolutely appalling lapse of judgment by the Government in privatising Aer Lingus”.

“The national carrier was created for a purpose ... to provide a small, open, island economy with the air connections it needs to achieve balanced economic development,” he said.