CULLEN: airline memo "ill- judged"

The leaked Aer Lingus memo that discussed ways of cutting staff from the airline was "ill-judged" and should never have happened, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen has said.

The controversial 30-page memo, which included recommendations to encourage more staff to take voluntary redundancies, was "not the approach we want to see in industrial relations", Mr Cullen told reporters yesterday. "This was a most unhelpful thing to happen. It was very ill-judged and should never happen in any industrial relations matter."

Workers needed to be able to trust management if the future of the company was to be secure, he said, and he hoped such an error of judgment would not occur again.

"This is certainly not the approach we want to see in industrial relations in either the private sector or the public sector. It should never have happened and I trust it won't happen in the future."