Airport high-fliers pay the price

MATTHEW O’MEARA (Irish Examiner letters, April 4) has a good moan about Cork’s lack of political clout with regard to the airport and its debt, concluding that “maybe Roy Keane is right: Cork doesn’t matter”.

The reality is that the then Transport Minister, Seamus Brennan, promised Cork airport would be granted independence from Dublin on a debt-free basis, but the local smart boys saw an opportunity to pull a fast one. Thinking they had been handed a blank cheque, they went ahead and built a Taj Mahal of a terminal at enormous expense.

Now they’re bleating about being asked to pay about half the cost of their gold-plated white elephant. Then we had Roy Keane moaning about an imagined anti-Cork bias simply because one of his Sunderland players hasn’t been included in the Irish football squad.

The rest of the country might consider it a wise precaution on Steve Staunton’s part given that a certain Corkman walked out on his country at a critical time a couple of years ago.

Roy’s recent criticism was about as well timed as that infamous Saipan departure.

Cork should just get over it.

Peter Molloy

9 Haddington Park

Glenageary

Co Dublin