State faces €5m bill over ‘bogus redundancy deal’ at Aer Lingus

THE state may have to pay out more than €5 million to Aer Lingus to partly cover the costs of a fire and rehire deal that was labelled a “bogus redundancy scheme” by Public Accounts Committee chairman Bernard Allen.

Appearing before the Dáil committee yesterday, Department of Enterprise secretary general Seán Gorman said the legal position concerning the 1,073 staff who left the airline under a voluntary severance scheme in late 2008 was still under discussion.

Subsequently, 715 staff were re-employed into new roles under significantly different terms and conditions of employment.