The Minister for Defence, Willie O'Dea, has indicated that he is not prepared to resign from Cabinet over the row about plans by Aer Lingus to end its service from Shannon to Heathrow, in particular over whether the Government should seek to force the airline to change its mind.
Speaking after a meeting with senior Aer Lingus management yesterday, the Minister said that the question he had to ask himself was whether it would help Shannon or assist in restoring the slots to Heathrow if he left the Government.
"What benefit would it be to the people that I am supposed to be representing here in the mid-west?" he said.
Mr O'Dea said that he had been expelled from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party previously over voting against the government of the day on the closure of Barrington's Hospital in his native Limerick. "Two weeks later Barrington's Hospital closed and has been closed since," he said.
Mr O'Dea said that he hoped he was not isolated in Cabinet on his position regarding the Shannon-Heathrow route but that if he was then "so be it".
He said that he was going to fight for Shannon within the Cabinet and to continue to express his view outside it until such time as the Government met on Wednesday week and made a decision. He said that at that point he would be bound by collective Cabinet responsibility.
"The Cabinet are not a bunch of automatons who wake up every morning singing from the same hymn sheet, eating the same cornflakes for breakfast and repeating the same mantras throughout the day. Cabinet are individuals, each of whom have their own opinions on matters. When the Cabinet meets and decides policy collectively we are all bound by collective Cabinet responsibility, but until then people are entitled to their own opinions and to a certain extent people are entitled to express them in public in advance of such a decision," he said.
"When the Cabinet meets as a collective, let us then see whether I am as totally isolated as I appear to be," he said.
Mr O'Dea said that he still believed that the advice given to his Cabinet colleague, the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, on the possible consequences for the mid-west region and the level of fear in the area was incorrect.
"My colleague [Minister for the Environment] John Gormley came down here yesterday and having spoken to people on the ground and taken the temperature on the ground, I think he has gone back slightly more worried than when he came down".
"If people come down here and see the situation for themselves they will appreciate what people are saying," he said.
Asked about the statement issued on Wednesday by the Minster for Education, Mary Hanafin, on behalf of the Government, Mr O'Dea said: "Mary Hanafin said that it would be inappropriate for the Government to intervene to force Aer Lingus to change its mind. What I said was that I am still trying to persuade Aer Lingus to change its mind. They are two different things.
"We are still trying to persuade them. If we do not manage to persuade them then that is for another day and that is the next stage.
"Mary Hanafin's statement said that it would be inappropriate for the Government to intervene to force Aer Lingus to change its mind and that is my position too, by and large. The very worst way to run a private company is for every vital management decision to be overruled by shareholders.
"I am hoping it will not come to that so from that point of view I have no direct conflict with Mary Hanafin or anybody else," he said.
Minister of State Tony Killeen also signalled that he would not be resigning over the controversy.
Labour Party deputy Jan O'Sullivan said she had formed the impression at the meeting with Aer Lingus management that the company, commercially, was not going to change its decision unless forced or pressurised to do so by Government.
Kieran O'Donnell of Fine Gael said Aer Lingus had not provided any concrete explanation on a commercial basis as to why it had decided to discontinue the Heathrow route.