The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, has said there are 12 months in which to implement the Government's decision on the break-up of Aer Rianta and to reach agreement with unions and other parties concerned.
The Minister made the comments in Kerry yesterday as he attempted to resolve the stand-off between the Department and two Aer Rianta directors, Mr Liam Meade and Ms Freda Hayes, over their future on the Aer Rianta board.
Both Mr Meade and Ms Hayes have so far turned down an offer from the Minister to move to the newly constituted Shannon and Cork airport boards.
The Irish Times has learned that Mr Meade and Aer Rianta worker-director Mr Pat Fitzgerald flew by helicopter from Shannon to Cork for an informal meeting of other Aer Rianta directors yesterday.
An Aer Rianta spokesperson said last night it could not comment.
Mr Brennan rejected union suggestions yesterday of "dictatorial tendencies" in the break-up. He said he had good meetings with the unions on Friday in which there had been a lot of "straight talking".
There would be a series of meetings over the weeks and months ahead, he added.
Far from redundancies, there would be job creation, Mr Brennan predicted, and there would be time over the next 12 months to get the maximum benefit for airport workers and users.
"Certainly, there are no dictatorial tendencies on my part," Mr Brennan said in response to questions from journalists, adding that he did not wish to engage in that sort of language.
He was also confident that difficulties with some Aer Rianta directors would be ironed out. He said he was having discussions with the directors and he was not interested in personalities, but was "more policy-driven".
It is understood that Mr Brennan met Mr Meade yesterday. He expects to meet the Aer Rianta chairman, Mr Noel Hanlon, and Ms Hayes before finalising his plans. He is hoping to have his plans finalised before a scheduled meeting of the Aer Rianta board tomorrow.
The Minister was in Scartaglen, Co Kerry, where he announced details of the extension of the free travel pass to the Rural Transport Initiative (RTI). This would enable about 7,000 of the 13,000 users of RTI to travel free.
Mr Brennan also promised that the introduction of penalty points for not having a seat belt would be implemented on July 31st. More offences would be rolled out over the next year, he said, and the entire system of 62 penalty point offences would be up and running within a year.
Penalty points were only one aspect in the "day-to-day battle of road deaths", Mr Brennan stressed. Penalty points belonged to the people of Ireland and getting road deaths down needed constant enforcement by the Garda and the travelling public.
The Minister expressed his sympathy to those involved in the early morning road accident in Co Kerry which claimed two lives and left one person injured.