Talks between Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary this evening without progress on the possible creation of 300 jobs at Dublin airport.
In a statement issued after tonight's meeting Ms Coughlan said she was "disappointed with the Ryanair response".
She said she pointed out during the meeting that Hangar 6, which Ryanair said it wanted to buy or lease, is not available as it is licensed to Aer Lingus for the next 20 years. However, she said that these facilities could be replicated elsewhere on Airport lands where a number of viable sites exist for this purpose.
She also said she told Ryanair it could also be possible to accommodate the proposal in space remaining available in other hangars at the Airport.
Ms Coughlan said she queried why Hangar 6 was the only option being pursued by Ryanair and why, in particular, Ryanair could not locate the project at a new hangar which they could build elsewhere at the Airport as they were doing in Scotland.
The Tánaiste said she continues to be available and asked Mr. O’Leary to reflect further on the situation as she believed that, "with common sense, good will and determination, a positive outcome is still achievable."
Speaking prior to giving a lecture to economics students at Trinity College Dublin today, Mr O'Leary said: "the issue for Mary Coughlan tonight is do you want 300 jobs for Dublin airport or do you want an empty hangar?"
"All we want is the hangar, we don't need any subsidies and we haven't asked for any subsidies" to create the jobs, Mr O'Leary added.
After a day of crossed messages yesterday, Ms Coughlan and Mr O’Leary last night expressed their willingness to meet.
A spokesman for Ms Coughlan said her door had always been open to the Ryanair boss, but said the only important issue was to sort out the obstacles to creating the jobs.
“If it means building a hangar or finding an existing hangar we will do it. There are obstacles in the way of some options but we will try and surmount them,” he said.
Yesterday Mr O’Leary offered to meet the Tánaiste but the offer was made after she had responded to a letter from Ryanair. In her letter Ms Coughlan defended her handling of the airline’s offer to create 500 jobs on the former SR Technics site.
She expressed her disappointment at learning of Ryanair’s decision to locate its new investment in Prestwick, Scotland, despite the best efforts of the Department of Enterprise, through IDA Ireland, to secure the investment for Dublin.
But today Ryanair again sought to ratchet up the controversy by releasing photographs of Hanger 6, which, it claimed, showed no heavy work taking place at the facility, “at a time of year when it should be full of aircraft undergoing heavy maintenance”.
Ryanair said Aer Lingus have a long-term heavy maintenance contract for their entire fleet of 35 aircraft in France and therefore has no requirement for the Hangar 6 facility.
The airline repeated its claims that the Dublin Airport Authority lease to Aer Lingus was designed solely to block Ryanair’s request for the facility which had been submitted to the Tánaiste last September.
Fine Gael TD, Dr James Reilly, today called on Ms Coughlan to secure the 300 jobs offered by Ryanair at Dublin airport.
“We’re talking about 300 families who have lost their income and desperately need a lifeline, not to mention the many more families that would benefit from downstream jobs,” he said.