Dublin Airport Authority to control terminal

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has confirmed that he expects the second terminal at Dublin airport to be run by the Dublin Airport Authority.

Mr Ahern told the Dáil that the Government intended to make a decision on the second terminal shortly. Speaking before the Cabinet met yesterday evening to consider the terminal and the proposed partial sale of Aer Lingus, Mr Ahern said that "whether we make the decision today or next week we are going to make a decision shortly".

However, during leaders' questions when Labour leader Pat Rabbitte accused him of planning a terminal each for Fianna Fáil, the Progressive Democrats and the Dublin Airport Authority, Mr Ahern retorted that "we are talking about one new terminal, not one for this and one for that". He said that "we are talking about a second terminal under the control of the Dublin Airport Authority".

During sharp exchanges about the terminal and the future of Aer Lingus, the Taoiseach was accused of "treachery" in the proposed partial sale of the national airline, but Mr Ahern said that "equity injection in Aer Lingus is essential for the national airline to continue to develop into the future. It is not an issue of ideology."

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the Government had been "dithering" for months about the terminal. He said that "what you are about to do now apparently is to make a decision to build a terminal that will be inadequate by 2010".

Mr Ahern said, however, that the Government had been in discussions with all the relevant organisations for months "trying to make a decision for the long-term and not just for now".

He pointed out that "Pier D is to be finished by 2007 and the terminal by 2009. The capacity will be 30 million passengers".

Some of the most heated exchanges arose over the proposed partial sale of Aer Lingus.

Mr Rabbitte asked "will Fianna Fáil, the republican party, surrender control of a strategic national asset". If the Taoiseach did that "you will see it being asset stripped and this country, as an island nation dependent on these critical trade routes with the rest of the world, will be exposed and vulnerable and will suffer as a result".

British Airways was the most likely prospect for the purchase of Aer Lingus which would turn it into a subsidiary feeder airline for BA. "Ryanair has done a great job where it has done its job, but the last thing we need is another Ryanair. We do not want to convert Aer Lingus into a Ryanair and effectively make it a subsidiary to serve the strategic interests of BA or another company."

The Taoiseach said that an equity injection was essential for the future of Aer Lingus. "To do otherwise would mean keeping a national airline that would have no success and no future."

Socialist TD Joe Higgins said that if Aer Lingus ended up in the "hands of the sharks who dominate international big business" the Government "will be guilty of outright treachery and of stabbing in the back the thousands of Aer Lingus workers".

But Mr Ahern said that "even the deputy does not believe that raimeis". The Taoiseach added that "we must move into a world that allows the company to examine new opportunities it has identified".