Dempsey’s career looks grounded
The Transport Department’s seriously flawed navigation systems were blamed after the minister claimed his senior officials allowed him to fly blind into the biggest political crisis of the summer.
Mr Dempsey had always insisted no early warning sirens went off in Government about plans by Aer Lingus to divert the slots to Heathrow away from Shannon and give them to Belfast until just days before the company announced the move in early August.
However, the Irish Examiner proved this to be wrong as a memo “for the minister’s attention” warned of the move as early as June 13.
The department’s assistant secretary John Murphy was so alarmed by what he read he immediately contacted Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion to express concern about the implication of a reduction in the Shannon-Heathrow service.
And then, well, nothing. Mr Dempsey insists he never saw the document intended for him, and in a shocking act of indifference there was no further contact between the Government and Aer Lingus on the matter until July 27, when Mr Dempsey was formally notified of the plans. Too late to do anything about it — even if the minister had wanted to — without causing a major crisis of confidence in the newly independent Aer Lingus.
In the confusion of taking up a new department on June 14 it is possible the minister did not see the document, but it seems incredible that as the crisis raged throughout August and September none of his officials at any time alerted him to the fact his office was aware of the gathering storm in early June.
But, apparently not, as Mr Dempsey insists he was not told until last Saturday night and then only because the Examiner was sniffing around with a freedom of information request. What a curious way to run a major government department.
The “smoking gun” document marked for the eyes of the minister is also central to another strange element of this saga.
In an unusually helpful and virtually unprecedented move, an “explanatory” note was provided with it stating that despite what it says on the tin, the minister did not in fact see it. So, for “this is our explanation” read “this is the minister’s excuse”.
Connoisseurs of limp political fig leafs will find this has a slight echo of the Taoiseach’s explanation for why he forgot to mention his close pal Mick Wall had been one of the businessmen at the Manchester meeting where Bertie Ahern was given £8,000 for his trouble. Mr Ahern insisted his friend had only stayed in the bar and “didn’t eat the dinner”.
It seems Mr Dempsey stayed in his office and didn’t read the letter.
It was all a delight to the opposition, which could roast the minister at will.
If he did read the note and took no action he should resign for being incompetent. If he didn’t read the note, he should still resign for being incompetent as he was running such a sloppy department.
Indeed, the only minister who comes out anywhere near as bad as Mr Dempsey on this is Shannon’s self-styled Government champion Willie O’Dea. Far from his claims of Aer Lingus devising a sinister and Cromwellien scorched earth policy towards the mid-west, which they married to a vast conspiracy operation in which the airline “sneakily” waited until the Cabinet was happily on its August holidays before dropping its jobs bombshell, bosses were chatting to top brass at the Transport Department about it last June.
Which leaves little doubt as to why Fianna Fáil took such a novel understanding of what freedom of information means when they warned their troops about what was coming in the Examiner. To the party it is clearly the freedom to try and spike any damaging information which may be ripped out of the Government machine by briefing their TDs all about it before the pesky ladies and gentlemen of the press get their sweaty little hands on it.
Mr Dempsey may have survived a bumpy landing, but it may be some time before his career is cleared for take-off again.
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