A war of words has broken out between SIPTU president Mr Des Geraghty and Ryanair chief executive, Mr Michael O'Leary after the union leader accused the airline boss of wanting to control, rather than to liberalise, the aviation industry.
Mr O'Leary responded by saying Mr Geraghty was a "windbag" not interested in job creation and more concerned with maintaining closed shops. The row broke just before the break up of Aer Rianta was announced this afternoon.
In a strongly worded statement this morning, Mr Geraghty, said the controversial airline boss was "trying to fool the public" through adverts placed in the national press in the past week.
The union has referred one of the adverts - which Mr Geraghty described as "puerile" - to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI).
The advertisement is headlined: "SIPTU say no to competition". The full page ad in the Irish Independentalso contains text stating that SIPTU was against the deregulation of a number named industries and competing terminals at Dublin Airport.
Mr Geraghty said SIPTU is not against competition and deregulation but it would defend members against lower pay and conditions of employment because of unfair competition or poorly managed deregulation.
"Mr O'Leary is using bully-boy tactics to get his way, but we will not be bullied by him ... He does not want competition - he wants control," Mr Geraghty added.
But Mr O'Leary rubbished the comments saying SIPTU was "anti-consumer". Referring to the union's opposition to taxi deregulation, Mr O'Leary said: "They'd prefer people to queue at night until 4 a.m. ... It's like Arthur Scargill all over again: we're against it because we're against it."
The Ryanair boss said SIPTU was opposed to a new terminal at Dublin Airport because it wanted to defend its 900 members from an imaginary threat. He said 5,000,000 new passengers would enter the country as a result of a new terminal, creating 1,000 jobs at the facility at 5,000 extra places in the tourism business at large.
"The reason why transport in this country is a mess is because it's run by the unions. Mr Geraghty is an old windbag who would prefer to maintain the present monopoly shambles at the expense of customers.
"He won't even say what his objections are [to a second terminal] except to waffle on about families." Mr O'Leary concluded.