Call for Dempsey to resign over Shannon pull out

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey faced calls for his resignation tonight over the scrapping of the Shannon-Heathrow link.

The minister faced tough questioning in the Dáil after confirming civil servants knew of Aer Lingus’s controversial plan to leave Shannon in mid-June, but did not tell him for another six weeks.

The airline publicly announced its intention to axe Shannon in favour of a Belfast hub in August and the minister today faced criticisms that more could have been done to prevent the move.

Jan O’Sullivan, Labour Party TD for Limerick East, said her constituents were outraged and demanded an independent inquiry.

Speaking in the Dail, she said: “Does he [Mr Dempsey] seriously expect us to believe that for that month-and-a-half nobody told him, nobody told the government, nobody told the Taoiseach, nobody told Minister Willie O’Dea, despite the fact that this issue had been brought to the attention of his officials and his officials considered it serious enough to contact the chief executive of Aer Lingus about the issue?

“Does he seriously expect us, and does he seriously expect the Irish people, to believe that that is the case?”

She said the decision to quit Shannon could have been prevented.

“I think the buck stops with you minister and I do think that you should seriously consider your position as Minister for Transport.”

Officials in the Department of Transport have been asked to investigate why their colleagues did not pass on the information at the first opportunity.

The minister responded to the resignation demand in the Dáil by insisting he had not received the information on the Aer Lingus plan and blamed the episode on human error.

Mr Dempsey told the Dáil: “The deputy asked me was there a document in the department on the 13th of June. There was. The document was released under freedom of information. It was headed, as the deputy says, ’For the information of the minister’.

“I never received that document and neither did my predecessor.

“Everybody within the department accepts the fact that I should have been told what was in the document… but I wasn’t.

“Why? It was human error – I don’t want to pre-empt the report – but from the information that I have, it was human error in the department and that’s now the subject of a report.

“The deputy asked me do I seriously expect herself or anybody else in the opposition to believe what I am saying, No, I actually don’t expect the opposition to believe anything.”

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Connectivity Alliance (ACA), set up to fight the Aer Lingus move and defend Shannon, said it had been denied valuable negotiating time.

Speaking prior to the Dáil clash, the ACA said: “We have been denied an opportunity to work with them in a business-like fashion in a bid to avert this crisis.

“We hope that the minister’s inquiry into this issue will be dealt with swiftly and the reason for this damaging breakdown in communications will be made known at the earliest opportunity.”