Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

(Diarmy.net) Shannon? Has anyone uttered it in the past week?? As if to prove the point of it being silly-season in the media, focus has been diverted from the so-called ‘debacle’ over Shannon Airport to the sordid business of Judge Alan Mahon hauling our Prime Minister, Taoiseach, Head of State, All-Round Good-Guy, Bertie Ahern up [...]

Here’s another shoe dropping in the SNN-LHR row.  Ryanair is putting Stansted flights from Belfast City (George Best).  4 a day.  They also want a runway expansion to facilitate additional flights from Belfast City as a new base.  As usual, every move can be spun various ways.  Aer Lingus will now claim vindication: that Ryanair [...]

The Mid-West TD’s have rolled over and now think that the government are doing a great job on the Shannon issue. Of course they are nothing going to tell us what made them change their minds. The cynic in me thinks it got nothing to do with Shannon. The realist in me agrees. Here is [...]

The Shannon thing rumbles on in a dim and distant fashion as the Atlantic Connectivity/local lobby take aim at a cavalier Noel Dempsey and unsupportive Bertie Ahern. Yet Aer Lingus are still not out of the woods by a long way. Their talks today could end up sending pilots back to the pickets over pay [...]

It’s probably not on your regular websurfing list but the website of the Irish Stock Exchange has been very lively recently, as seemingly arcane company announcements can occasionally pertain to fallout from the US subprime mortgage crisis.  But sitting there today is Ryanair’s formal notification to the exchange that it is seeking an EGM, along [...]

Green Ink

Last night the Ennis number 1 Cumann voted a motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach following the handling of Aer Lingus’ decision to pull its Shannon-Heathrow slots.
The Ennis Number One Cumann is accusing Bertie Ahern of failing to provide political leadership following Aer Lingus’ decision to end services between Shannon and Heathrow.
It is also [...]

A fairly comprehensive statement today from the up-to-now quiet Enda Kenny on SNN-LHR. Perhaps some of the time was spent reconciling the position that FG will now adopt with their non-opposition to the Aer Lingus privatization (although they had complaints at the time about how it was managed). A few interesting things in [...]

Here’s the text of the (hastily written?) press release from the Department of Transport following the Cabinet meeting on Shannon-Heathrow today.  The statement is mostly the familiar litany from the government and avoids the issue of the call for an Aer Lingus EGM or the purpose of the 25 percent shareholding.  But there might be [...]

Here’s an issue that has surfaced briefly at various times in the Shannon-Heathrow-Belfast dispute and has now been explicitly raised by IMPACT: is Belfast in Ireland?  We can probably all recall instances where one of the many usages for the two jurisdictions on the island has had a similar impact as fingernails being drawn across a [...]

Here’s an interesting profile from the Financial Times a few days ago of Padraig O’Ceidigh, now the chairman but at one time the hands-on businessman who developed Aer Arann out of its island service base into a decent sized regional point-to-point carrier.   It’s not clear whether this is the right model for Shannon, where long-haul [...]

After drifting a little bit the SNN-LHR controversy and the related issue of the Aer Lingus strike are heating up again this evening.   The latest non-Bertie non-Dempsey spokesperson for the government is Mary Hanafin — perhaps she was the only one around given the Leaving Cert results.  And the employee trust has spoken up.  This [...]

There is a Save Shannon Heathrow petition.  Sign it if you wish.

Who ever thinks corporations are all about the Shareholders is wrong. According to Ryanair they own 25% of the company the government 25% and the unions and workers about 20%. So that means 70% of the shareholders are against this move. So obviously this is not all about the shareholders. Ryanair have promised more flights [...]

A dog that hadn’t barked up to now — Aer Lingus staff — is barking. Tonight brings news of a 48 hour strike by pilots next week, not in protest against the Shannon withdrawal per se, but the fact that new Belfast base is hiring pilots outside the collective bargaining contract. This arises from the [...]

So Willie comes out and says how terrible this whole Shannon thing is. Why did it take him 8 days to come out with that. Something tells me he was hoping it would blow over. Afraid not Willie the ball was dropped on this. Richard Delevan has an excellent piece in the tribune about it [...]