Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary says he would have sacked the Luas drivers and would instead hire students.
“I would have sacked the whole lot of them — out you go. An all out strike for two weeks then come back lads here’s the terms. When you get a bunch of head bangers who turn down 20 per cent over three years when inflation is less than one per cent, looking for a 50 per cent pay increase for a job that is already double rate of tram drivers in Blackpool, that’s mad,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“It takes about two nanoseconds to learn how to drive a tram — push to the left to go forward, push to the right to go backwards. You could hire students on their summer holidays and train them to drive trams.
“The Luas dispute got disproportionate coverage, mostly by RTÉ which is run entirely by the unions. You’d swear the entire of Dublin had come to standstill. There’s buses serving all the Luas areas as well,” he said.
Mr O’Leary said he would give credit to former and current ministers for transport, Paschal Donohoe and Shane Ross, for keeping out of it. “If they want to go on strike and lose their jobs let them. There’s plenty of people to replace them.”
When asked about his feelings about cyclists he said: “The problem with Dublin is it is run by a bunch of cyclists. There are no public transport solutions except for buses and we keep making it more difficult for traffic because it’s more trendy to do so. We keep making driving more difficult.
“They should make Dublin easier to use for buses and motorists — get rid of the trams and on street car parking. Dublin Corporation should be building massive car parks at about five different points in the city — under Stephen’s Green, under Merrion Square — motorists pay the most, cyclists pay nothing.”
On the issue of Brexit he predicted that the vote is going to get very close, which will help the remain side.
“What we need is reform of Brussels. I despise Brussels and what goes on in Brussels, but ultimately the open market works it has been a huge engine for change. The problem in Brussels is that they want to re regulate everything.”
He denied he had described independent TDs as local lunatics: “I said they were village idiots. People criticise government but if you’re going to elect idiots then we have to criticise ourselves if you’re going to elect 40 per cent of the Dáil as the local idiot or the local campaigner for the local lunatic asylum.
“Then we’re surprised that we can’t form a stable government for four or five years. We need to take some responsibility as an electorate. The next time there’s an election and I think there will be one before the end of the year, we should at least elect parties that can form a government.”
He said that Ryanair had been able to buy Aer Lingus “we would have doubled their business by now. We do the same business in a month that they do in a year. It’s a good airline it does what it does, but it has no growth possibilities.”