The proposed break-up of Aer Rianta comes to the fore again today as the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, seeks Cabinet approval to bring legislation before the Dáil. Mr Brennan wants the Dáil to debate the break-up before it goes into recess next month. He may find it easy to overcome opposition to the proposal from the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, but it will be no easy matter to persuade the workers involved that the break-up is in the best interests of the airports.
Mr Brennan has been keen to stress that the break-up is not just his preference but that it is also the firmly-agreed policy of the Government. The reasoning behind it, he says, is that the airports at Cork and Shannon, when they start to benefit from strong regional leadership, will no longer play second-fiddle to Dublin Airport.
It could be argued that the full potential of Cork and Shannon airports has not been achieved under Aer Rianta ownership despite considerable investment. Shannon faces the inevitable ending of the transatlantic stop-over rule. There does not seem to be any strategy in place that will deliver alternative airlines and its attractiveness to low-cost airlines is not helped by the fact that it suffers from above average operating costs. Meanwhile, Cork Airport has failed to flourish in the way that other small regional airports in Europe have done.
Mr Brennan is to be commended for displaying a sense of urgency, but the break-up of Aer Rianta, of itself, is not guaranteed to deliver growth for the airports. More to the point, the critical issue in civil aviation is the limited facilities at Dublin Airport which strangle the airport at peak times and constrain its ability to attract new airline business. Mr Michael O'Leary of Ryanair may be somewhat over the top in the style of his criticism but he has a valid point when he argues that the Government promised action on an independent second terminal for Dublin Airport and has delivered nothing.
There can be no doubt that a second terminal would attract new airlines and create jobs. Mr Brennan has yet to explain why he has not delivered on his promise and why he has allowed the Aer Rianta break-up to take precedence. Work on the second terminal could have started long ago and not had any effect on the Minister's plans for Aer Rianta. The workers at Dublin Airport are unsettled. Mr Brennan has promised and not delivered and meanwhile he has spread uncertainty with his Aer Rianta proposal. No doubt he and his Cabinet colleagues will have noticed that Fianna Fáil candidates in north Dublin fared particularly badly in the elections. They would not have to search long to find the cause.