Gay keen to air his thoughts

Veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne did not make little of his desire for the quiet life when he retired from RTE a few months ago.

Rest, relaxation and the odd spin on his new Harley Davidson motorbike were to be the order of the day.

The Margin has learnt, however, that Gaybo has been up to a different class of spinning altogether.

The great man apparently turned up at a meeting last week between the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, and aviation tycoon Dr Tony Ryan.

While it's no secret that Byrne favours his friend Dr Ryan's plan to develop a civilian airport at Baldonnel, the Margin believes that the Minister's team was surprised to see the media man personally lobbying the Government for the cause.

It's an unusual alliance given that Byrne's services have already been signed up by Richard Branson's Virgin Airlines and Dr Ryan is a director of Ryanair, the airline he founded in the 1980s.

The Margin doubts that this comfortable consensus is a foretaste of a future alliance between the competing airlines. But it's nice to see that Dr Ryan and Mr Byrne can still be friends.