Ryanair boss warns of 3,000 job losses at Dublin Airport

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has today said 3,000 jobs at Dublin Airport could go this year with the loss of three million passengers.

In a trademark attack on Government, Aer Lingus and DAA policy this afternoon, O'Leary said Irish tourism is on the verge of collapse because of high prices and the travel tax.

O'Leary said his company has genuine practical suggestions to help tourism in Ireland but that the Government does not want to hear them.

“If BA arrived over here, Air France arrived over here, or Lufthansa arrived over here with a strategy for growing Irish tourism, they would be inviting them out to Farmleigh, they'd be running them down to the Phoenix Park to meet the president,” O’Leary said.

“Yet here you have the world’s largest international airline, and every time we make a proposal such as ‘we think we could rescue Aer Lingus’ it gets turned down.

“We think we could save Irish tourism, yet they ignore us.”