Seanad report: Aer Lingus was going to be a very difficult State asset to sell if the Government went on making a complete mess of the process, Shane Ross (Ind) warned. "In the light of the fact that they are looking for a mere €400 million, which won't even buy two Boeing jets, should we not reconsider this decision to privatise the airline?" he added.
Jimmy Walsh
Mr Ross said that while he tended to believe in a privatisation, he shared the view of Brendan Ryan (Lab) that the Government had not yet made the business case for privatisation. We were in an extraordinary muddle where people did not know where they stood on Aer Lingus. Minister for Transport Martin Cullen did not know when it was going to happen or how many shares the Government would hold. "This is in danger of backfiring quite badly. It's been postponed again. I don't know who is behind it and who is controlling it," said Mr Ross, stressing that the issue should be debated in the House.
Paschal Mooney (FF) called for a debate on "disturbing allegations" that he said had reportedly been made at immigration centres. The Minister for Justice or someone from the department should respond to the allegations that the Refugee Council had been investigating.
Mr Mooney said that he and parliamentary colleagues had been trying to alleviate the difficulties affecting Irish nationals in the US who were also immigrants. "We have to look into the mote in our own eye. If the allegations that are in the newspapers stand up, I think they are indefensible and unacceptable - that people who fled their own countries for the very best of reasons to find a better life, should be treated with contempt, that their dignity has been compromised and they are not even given basic rights."
Paul Coghlan (FG) asked if an EU commissioner was intent on sounding the death knell of an Irish custom of viewing bodies prior to burial. He said that commissioner Stavros Dimas had decreed that the use of body embalming fluids be banned.
That would make the ancient Irish practice of the viewing of remains a thing of the past. "We have to ask is he trying to sound a death knell for a treasured Irish custom."
Ulick Burke (FG) said he believed that a hidden factor that had contributed to last Tuesday's school bus tragedy in Co Offaly was the fact that all of the children travelling in the vehicle had been refused school transport under the Department of Education scheme.
A tragic aspect was that for almost 15 years calls for a review of the transport catchment areas had been ignored.