Michael O’Leary praises Shane Ross over Bus Éireann dispute

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary has heaped praise on Minister for Transport Shane Ross for not intervening in the Bus Éireann dispute.

“I think he’s played a blinder on the bus issue, because he stayed out of it - and the Minister should stay out of those issues where you have public sector unions running around trying to suck ministers and politicians into resolving disputes,” he said.

“You’ll only get negotiations and common sense from unions when they understand that the Government won’t come around and open the cheque book again.”

Speaking on the first Yates on Sunday programme on Newstalk radio since presenter Ivan Yates returned to broadcasting, the Ryanair boss hit out at former taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

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“Bertie, as you’ll remember, was a great man for opening the cheque books and buying off the unions for many years. We are still dealing with the damage that that caused.”

He insisted: “You have to stay out of it - let the management of Bus Éireann manage it. The unions have to accept that there is management in place, and they have to deal with management.

“The problem is in this country Dublin is a village, and the politicians feel under pressure to get involved in things that they shouldn’t be involved in.”

Mr O'Leary also hit out at the British government, claiming it did not have a clue what it was doing about Brexit.

He said the EU was the biggest free trade bloc in the world and Ireland should not compromise that relationship by trying to cut some bilateral deal with Britain.

“And frankly we are not big enough and strong enough to cut that bilateral deal. We will stay in the tent with the other 27,” Mr O’Leary said.

“I think the closer you push Britain to the cliff edge in March 2019, eventually I think the Tory party will turn in on itself and realise that actually leaving the biggest single trading block in Europe is stupid.”

He claimed the British government “doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing” in relation to Brexit.

The UK had said they were going to leave the Open Skies regime, which Mr O’Leary described as “basically the European Union for airlines”, because they did not want to obey European Court of Justice rulings.

“But if you leave Open Skies, then we go back to WTO [World Trade Organisation] rules. But aviation is not covered by WTO.”

He believed that if there were no flights into or out of the UK for three months after the two years of negotiations, the “guy on the street” in north east England would begin to understand what was going on.

“Explaining passporting of financial services doesn’t appeal to the guy in the street in Hull, or in Grimsby, or in Leicester. But if he can’t fly to Spain for his summer holidays, then they can begin to understand what’s happening.”

“The optimum solution is Britain doesn’t leave the biggest free-trading bloc in the world,” he insisted.

“And I think they may well change their minds in two years time - I hope some common sense will prevail.”