A Fianna Fáil TD has called on Aer Lingus management to realise "the game is up" and reverse the decision to end the Shannon-Heathrow route.
Limerick East TD Peter Power was speaking before entering a meeting in Shannon of Fianna Fáil TDs, Senators and councillors from the west of Ireland. Those attending the meeting included Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea, Minister of State Tony Killeen and TDs John Cregan and Timmy Dooley.
Speaking earlier in Thurles, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, said it would be "very difficult for a Government to intervene ... They are shareholders, 25 per cent shareholders, but they have to see the decisions that have been taken on a commercial basis," she said.
Mr Power told reporters before last night's meeting that he hoped the consensus from the meeting would be "that Aer Lingus even before the extraordinary general meeting [ egm] will come to a conclusion now that the game is up".
Mr Power said he also hoped that "the major shareholders of the company, including the Government, Ryanair, possibly Esot [ the Employee Share Ownership Trust], the Aer Lingus pilots and a range of shareholders have now come to the conclusion that the decision of Aer Lingus management, rather than the board, is wrong, is flawed and that they should reverse it now before they have to go through the process of the egm". He added: "We have to remember at all times that the management manage any company at the behest of the shareholders."
A presentation was made at the meeting by the Shannon Connectivity Alliance and an Aer Lingus workers' group.
Briefly stepping out from the meeting, Mr Dooley said: "I'm of the view that the Government needs to develop a clear strategy for the continuation of the flights ... I await a clear and unequivocal statement from the Government and in tandem with that I await the Government's proposal for an effective resolution for this deepening crisis."
Earlier, Ms Hanafin said: "I've grown up in the midwest region and I am very conscious of the fact that Shannon is very important to the whole region, but equally ... people are coming here not just because of a link with Heathrow - they are coming here because of the beauty of the tourism and because of the education of the workforce."
She said it was possible CityJet flights from Shannon to Paris could help ease the problem.
"That could be a very exciting one. I know, all summer, people have been complaining, for example, about the delays at Heathrow - nine hours waiting for luggage and the difficulties of it as a hub. Perhaps Paris is going to be that new option. It would be a very encouraging one for Shannon because it would open up a whole region of the world that perhaps people don't use through Heathrow at the moment."