Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary last night said he would oppose a planning application for a second terminal at Dublin Airport and use any other legal options open to him unless the new facility was built by the private sector.
Mr O'Leary said yesterday that reports that the Government will shortly agree to allow the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) build the second terminal suggested that "a typical Bertie fudge" was on the cards.
He claimed this showed the Taoiseach was unwilling "to upset his friends in the unions" and that "the Siptu tail is wagging the Bertie dog".
Minister for Transport Martin Cullen is expected to update ministers tomorrow on an aviation policy package he is preparing. After a series of meetings with unions and other interests over the past fortnight, Mr Cullen is expected to propose the sale of a majority stake in Aer Lingus, with the building of a second terminal by the DAA. A final decision is not expected tomorrow, however.
Mr O'Leary has campaigned for a private-sector terminal to be set up in competition with the existing terminal, claiming the DAA presides over an uncompetitive State monopoly. He said yesterday that Ryanair would oppose a new DAA terminal "at the planning stage and in the courts", although he did not yet know precisely what legal grounds were available. "We may take it to Brussels on a competition basis," he said.
He told The Irish Times last night that Ryanair would continue to campaign to have a private-sector terminal built. "We don't want to own or build a terminal: we just don't want the Dublin Airport Authority and Siptu to own and build a terminal," he said.
In a reference to the repeated criticisms of Dublin Airport's facilities, he said: "Another terminal provided by the people who brought us the Black Hole of Calcutta is not competition: it's still the Black Hole of Calcutta."
Fine Gael has described as "long overdue" the news that the Cabinet may tomorrow discuss plans to sell a majority stake in Aer Lingus. However, Labour said the case for privatisation of a healthy State company had not been made, but it welcomed reports that the second terminal would be built by the DAA.
Fine Gael spokesman Brian Hayes said consumers had lost out from years of Government procrastination over Aer Lingus.