Below is my Irish Examiner column from this morning. As you can guess, I'm utterly outraged at the generous pay rises awarded to Ministers, judges, Garda and army top brass, and civil servants. Bertie Ahern was interviewed yesterday and was implacable and 100% unapologetic.
He threw in a couple of red herrings about the White House and Chequers but he's the leader of a country of 4 million people, not of 250 million or 60 million. At least he's not yet as bad as the leadership in Singapore ($3.1 million annual salary) but almost as bad. The greed of our politicians - and their lust for money - is breath-taking.
People shouldn't accept this. Somebody should take a stand against this naked money-grabbing.
Incidentally, Stephen Collins over in the Irish Times wasn't too happy about it either. You can see his column here (subscription). He extends the argument to talk about the unbelievably generous pay and pension and expenses packages that all politicians get.
There's no other way to describe it: it's a disgrace.
Anyway, here is the column:
It hasn’t been a bad week for Government. This Government just doesn’t have bad weeks.
They can be caught in the act, bang-to-rights, up to their neck in it, red-handed, with all their fingers stuffed into the cookie jar.
The first thing that happens in such a situation is they forgive themselves.
The second thing that happens is the public forgives them, gives them general absolution every five years.
And so this hasn’t been a bad week for Government. Nor for the permanent Government (the civil service). But it’s been a very bad week for politics.
Ten days ago Tánaiste and Finance Minister Brian Cowen held a pre-Budget briefing in Government Buildings where he gave an updated version of Haughey’s famous 1980 speech that ‘we were living beyond our means’.
Ok, it’s not that dramatic or that dire yet. But Cowen intoned in dull serious tones: “It is clear from this scenario that the position is very tight. Given this position
I will focus on ensuring a sustainable financial position as we move into the future.”
Yep tight. Those middle and low-ranking civil servants would have to trim their sails when it came to benchmarking, he warned. And on departmental spending, he boldly declared that there would be no “double digit increases” this year.
Except for himself and for Bertie Ahern. Double digit increases are the order of the day too for all their Cabinet colleagues. Cowen gets a 15% increase that brings his salary up to E270,000. And his boss gets an incredible E38,000 increase to make him just about the highest paid political leader in Europe. It’s enough to allow him – like an Arab Sheikh –have bespoke anoraks with gold thread.
And the standard excuse. It was an independent review body. Yea, sure. I’ll guarantee you one thing. The review body is never ever going to recommend a pay cut.
It has a grand sounding title – Review Body on Higher Remuneraton – but it is no judge and jury. This is a body that is given riding instructions and terms of reference and will come to the task with its own preconceived ideas.
And it benchmarks public servants and politicians against private business. There is one major difference. Civil servants don’t get the heave-ho if they underperform or don’t reach targets.
And why aren’t our politicians benchmarked against other politicians in Europe, and not against entrepeneurs and executives involved in the cut and thrust of business?
If they want private sector salaries let them go into the private sector. Public service, serving the people, should not be about the money. Some might have taken exception to the candid home truths expressed by the German ambassador. But I and a lot of other people believed he was spot on? Is Ahern worth more than Gordon Brown? Is he worth more than Angela Merkel? Is he worth more than Nicolas Sarkozy. No, no, and no. But this Government, and especially the politician at its head, are obsessed with money and wealth.
This might surprise you but the Cabinet this week adopted the recommendations of the review body. That was big of them.
Now that might seem like the bitter word but there is an important principle at stake here. Our over-represented and over-paid political class have always had a knack of being insulated from the cold winds of hardship to which the rest of us are periodically exposed. The cardinal principle of politics in Ireland is to feather your own nest first before turning your attention to others.
And that extends to the civil service too, where senior officials got another grand hike in pay this week. And the quid pro quo? A lot of over nebulous performance indicators.
And there is no better example than this of the debacle over the Shannon Heathrow slots. On foot of records released to the Irish Examiner under an FOI request it emerged that senior officials in the Department of Transport were aware as early as June that Shannon’s Heathrow slots were vulnerable but failed to inform the Minister.
The Minister than got the top civil servant in Transport Julie O’Neill to draw up a report.
Gobsmacked is a pretty tame description of our reaction on Thursday night when we all found out that the star of Julie O’Neill’s report was Julie O’Neill herself.
When the famous ‘Memo for the Minister’s Information’ surfaced a couple of weeks ago on foot of the Irish Examiner’s FOI request, neither she nor John Murphy could remember the memo or any of the events surrounding the memo.
But then when they began to retrieve emails – including deleted ones – it emerged that John Murphy had sent her versions of that very email not once but twice on June 14. And that on foot of the second email she had contacted John Sharman, the chairman of Aer Lingus, such was the urgency of the situation.
Seemingly, the Secretary General says that Sharman’s reassurance was such that the Shannon slots were put on the back burner, So reassuring that a collective amnesia overtook the whole Department as if the possibility of Shannon losing its slots had never arisen. And then like a bolt out of the blue it happened. It was Julie O’Neill’s Bertie-esque moment.
Noel Dempsey is a politician for whom I have a lot of admiration. But his bland Pontius Pilate comments that they had apologised and we should all move on isn’t good enough. We were here before with nursing home charges.
Why were recommendations of the Travers report ignored by senior civil servants in Transport? Why were key conversations on matters of political sensitivity not noted down in writing? Why was the DAA desperate enough about the situation to be looking at ways of incentivising Aer Lingus to keep at least one slot in Shannon on June 14? And why was it all suddenly dropped the very next day on June 15? What exactly did John Sharman say to Julie O’Neill? And how could she and John Murphy recall nothing four months later of the flurry of emails, memos and phone calls made on June 14?
The only way the Minister can move this on is by granting a full and frank independent report.
Showing posts with label Aer Lingus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aer Lingus. Show all posts
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - DEMPSEY: THE KNOWN KNOWNS AND THE UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
WHEN an embarrassing story appears — like our one that showed early departmental knowledge of the axing of Shannon’s Heathrow slots — the conspiracy theories are never far behind.
For what they are worth, here’s a sample of them: Noel Dempsey knew all along — he must have! The Government planned all of this years ago and are now trying to cover their behinds! There was a second memo on the grassy knoll. And there’s a guy in the Department of Transport who I’d swear is Elvis.
Okay, we are being a teensy weensy bit facetious here. But it’s important to separate what conclusions can be drawn; and what conclusions can’t be from this very important exposure.
The first cardinal rule is that you have to go along with the available evidence.
And what does this show? It shows that far from the decision suddenly being made public by Aer Lingus after months of secret plotting, they had kept the Department of Transport (and others) in the loop about their thinking all along. It shows that the department was aware at the most
senior level on June 14 and was fully aware of the serious repercussions this would have for Shannon Airport.
But inexplicably and inexcusably, the new Minister Noel Dempsey was never informed.
The Freedom of Information records released to the Irish Examiner are a glaring example of communications failure at a senior level. Those who suspect that the Government didn’t realise how enormous an issue Shannon would be until it happened will find an armoury of ammunition here.
That hiatus of six weeks when nothing was done, or nobody reported to their political master, was simply not good enough. The effort to save Shannon’s slots might have failed ultimately, but they would have been in a far better position than the desperate rearguard action Mr Dempsey had to engage in after the decision was made in August.
And we come to the corollary of this, the equally important debate. What do the records not show?
Well, they show us absolutely nothing to suggest that MrNoel Dempsey was at fault, despite all the suppositions and conspiracy theories. In fairness, he can’t be blamed either for presiding over a department that made a dog’s dinner of an issue. The reason? He had just been appointed and was not even inon his first day in office when this mess happened.
So what was the state of his knowledge? Mr Dempsey told the Dáil on September 27 that the first inkling he got that Shannon was losing ALL its slots was on August 3.
In a conversation I had with him this week he said that from about mid-July (though he couldn’t pin down the exact time) he was aware that Aer Lingus was actively seeking out a new base.
He accepted that he would have had a general awareness that would have meant that a Heathrow slot or two would have been required. However,But what he was not aware of until that fateful meeting with Dermot Mannion and John Sharman on August 3 was that Shannon would lose ALL its slots.
Sure, opposition spokespeople and the media have unearthed half a dozen examples of leaks and heavy hints being dropped that Shannon-Heathrow was in danger of being axed.
And in a way, yes, it looks like the Government did not just have its eye on the ball. Mr Dempsey was like the guy in the Kit Kat ad who spends hours at the zoo — poised with his camera — waiting for the panda bears to appear. Just when he turns around to have his Kit Kat, the panda bears come out and skate around.
Be that as it may, the presumption must be that Mr Dempsey is telling the truth. This isn’t like the nursing homes controversy, where there was a conflict of evidence between Micheal Martin and the top civil servant in Health. The civil servant involved put his hands up immediately admitting his failure to forward the memo to the minister.
Until evidence emerges to the contrary, it is the height of silliness for Labour’s Tommy Broughan to call for Mr Dempsey’s resignation.
The opposition may not find it credible that the minister was left completely in the dark, but there is simply no evidence to back up their suspicions that he knew.
For what they are worth, here’s a sample of them: Noel Dempsey knew all along — he must have! The Government planned all of this years ago and are now trying to cover their behinds! There was a second memo on the grassy knoll. And there’s a guy in the Department of Transport who I’d swear is Elvis.
Okay, we are being a teensy weensy bit facetious here. But it’s important to separate what conclusions can be drawn; and what conclusions can’t be from this very important exposure.
The first cardinal rule is that you have to go along with the available evidence.
And what does this show? It shows that far from the decision suddenly being made public by Aer Lingus after months of secret plotting, they had kept the Department of Transport (and others) in the loop about their thinking all along. It shows that the department was aware at the most
senior level on June 14 and was fully aware of the serious repercussions this would have for Shannon Airport.
But inexplicably and inexcusably, the new Minister Noel Dempsey was never informed.
The Freedom of Information records released to the Irish Examiner are a glaring example of communications failure at a senior level. Those who suspect that the Government didn’t realise how enormous an issue Shannon would be until it happened will find an armoury of ammunition here.
That hiatus of six weeks when nothing was done, or nobody reported to their political master, was simply not good enough. The effort to save Shannon’s slots might have failed ultimately, but they would have been in a far better position than the desperate rearguard action Mr Dempsey had to engage in after the decision was made in August.
And we come to the corollary of this, the equally important debate. What do the records not show?
Well, they show us absolutely nothing to suggest that MrNoel Dempsey was at fault, despite all the suppositions and conspiracy theories. In fairness, he can’t be blamed either for presiding over a department that made a dog’s dinner of an issue. The reason? He had just been appointed and was not even inon his first day in office when this mess happened.
So what was the state of his knowledge? Mr Dempsey told the Dáil on September 27 that the first inkling he got that Shannon was losing ALL its slots was on August 3.
In a conversation I had with him this week he said that from about mid-July (though he couldn’t pin down the exact time) he was aware that Aer Lingus was actively seeking out a new base.
He accepted that he would have had a general awareness that would have meant that a Heathrow slot or two would have been required. However,But what he was not aware of until that fateful meeting with Dermot Mannion and John Sharman on August 3 was that Shannon would lose ALL its slots.
Sure, opposition spokespeople and the media have unearthed half a dozen examples of leaks and heavy hints being dropped that Shannon-Heathrow was in danger of being axed.
And in a way, yes, it looks like the Government did not just have its eye on the ball. Mr Dempsey was like the guy in the Kit Kat ad who spends hours at the zoo — poised with his camera — waiting for the panda bears to appear. Just when he turns around to have his Kit Kat, the panda bears come out and skate around.
Be that as it may, the presumption must be that Mr Dempsey is telling the truth. This isn’t like the nursing homes controversy, where there was a conflict of evidence between Micheal Martin and the top civil servant in Health. The civil servant involved put his hands up immediately admitting his failure to forward the memo to the minister.
Until evidence emerges to the contrary, it is the height of silliness for Labour’s Tommy Broughan to call for Mr Dempsey’s resignation.
The opposition may not find it credible that the minister was left completely in the dark, but there is simply no evidence to back up their suspicions that he knew.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - SHANNON
My colleague Sean McCarthaigh's article this morning on the famous June 13 memo has dominated political discourse all day in the Dáil. (read the article here)
It indicated that the Department of Transport knew that the Shannon slots were in jeopardy some six weeks before the Minister Noel Dempsey found out about it in late July/early August.
Fianna Fail was fully aware of the implications of the story. All its TDs and Senators were briefed yesterday before the records were released to the Irish Examiner. So were all the political advisers across every department.
This story has worrying echoes of the controversy over nursing home charges that almost felled Micheal Martin (see here).
Here is my own analysis of the story from this morning's paper:
TO SAY that this June 13 memo will have serious
repercussions for the Government and for Transport Minister Noel Dempsey is the understatement of this relatively new millennium.
From the moment Aer Lingus unleashed a political firestorm by
announcing that it was favouring Belfast over Shannon, the Government was caught on the hop.
In his first reaction, Mr Dempsey seems to have completely misinterpreted the mood of the public. Disappointed for Shannon, delighted for Belfast was the ‘you win some, you lose some’ refrain.
It was only when furious aviation workers, the business community, and politicians (including virtually every Fianna Fáil TD, senator and councillor in the mid-west) started to kick up an almighty fuss that the Government began to get exercised in any way.
But from the start, the core of its very defence was just that it was ‘caught on the hop’. Aer Lingus, it suggested, had presented the decision as a fait accompli; and there was nothing that the Government could do about this bolt out of the blue.
In the Dáil debate on Shannon on September 27, Mr Dempsey said: “At a short meeting with the chairman (John Sharman) and chief executive (Dermot Mannion) of Aer Lingus on the 3rd of August I was informed that they intended to open a hub in Belfast and to transfer the Shannon-Heathrow slots to that route.”
This suggests this was the first time he learned of the decision.
Nor can we ignore the celebrated comments of Minister Willie O’Dea: “Dermot Mannion can’t come along on a bank holiday Monday and turn into a latterday Oliver Cromwell.”
But the explosive Note for the Minister’s Information released to
the Irish Examiner under the FOI Act demolishes that spin.
The first thing that should be noted is that it’s a note to the minister. That’s Noel Dempsey, who said he first learned about the decision on August 3. But this note is dated June 13, some seven weeks earlier.
Sure June 13 is the day before he was appointed to Transport. But he should have nevertheless received this note (soon after his appointment). It doesn’t mince its words.
It states baldly , unceremoniously, that Shannon is on the cusp of losing its Heathrow slots. On its face, the note would lead to the gravest political consequences for Mr Dempsey. No reading of the note would suggest anything other than the airline is close to a decision favouring Belfast.
It goes on to clearly spell out that this would lead to a cessation of the Shannon to Heathrow service.
Politically, Noel Dempsey and the Government were correctly criticised for underestimating the depth of feeling over Shannon and for doing too little too late. But part of its defence was predicated on not learning about the decision until effectively after it was made.
If this Note for the Minister’s Information had been actually forwarded to Mr Dempsey, his last act as Transport Minister would have been to walk the political plank in August once news of the controversy emerged.
And that is why department officials included an unprecedented “contextual note” with the FOI documents, explaining this June 13 note. They knew that implications for Dempsey f the note was read without explanation Mr Dempsey would be a goner.
And that contextual note explains that the note for the minister was drafted by a principal officer in the department, and passed on to an assistant secretary, the second-highest ranking official in the department.
But for a reason that has not been disclosed, the note “was not forwarded to the minister”.
This has echoes of the controversy about then Health Minister Micheál Martin’s degree of awareness of the problem concerning the legal basis of nursing home charges, and his disagreement with his most senior official that a note had been forwarded to him.
The fact that this note was not forwarded is baffling. The contextual note doesn’t explain why. And what is even more baffling is that the so-called contextual note (obviously written in the past few weeks) goes on to state that the assistant secretary, John Murphy, was fully aware of the potentially serious
nature of the Aer Lingus decision.
So concerned was he that on the day that he received the note, he actually rang Dermot Mannion, the chief executive of Air Lingus.
“The assistant secretary conveyed the concerns of the department, from an aviation and regional development perspective, about the implications of a reduction in the Shannon-Heathrow service,” says the contextual note.
Well, the minister was not aware but civil servants at the highest level of
his department were aware of the implications for Shannon from June but had neither informed Mr Dempsey about it then or later. Nor was any effort made during June or July to dissuade Aer Lingus from following a course that was clearly running against the spirit of the Government’s commitment to retain connectivity for Shannon.
It begs several serious questions. Why was the minister not informed? In his Dáil speech, Mr Dempsey said he was informed of the decision on August 3. Was he aware before then that establishing a hub at Belfast was being actively pursued by Aer Lingus and that it would entail the loss of Heathrow slots for Shannon?
When did he find out that his own department had been aware of the
potential cessation of Heathrow services from Shannon since June 13? If he knew (even in August or September), why did he not inform the Dáil or the public about it?
Why were the implications for Shannon from a regional development and aviation perspective not referred to in the original note to the minister? Were the concerns
Mr Murphy expressed to Mr Mannion reduced to writing? Given the Government’s sharp
retrospective criticism of Aer Lingus’s decision, why the inertia from Transport during June and July over a vitally important policy area. There was a break-down somewhere. And you suspect that heads will have to roll.
It indicated that the Department of Transport knew that the Shannon slots were in jeopardy some six weeks before the Minister Noel Dempsey found out about it in late July/early August.
Fianna Fail was fully aware of the implications of the story. All its TDs and Senators were briefed yesterday before the records were released to the Irish Examiner. So were all the political advisers across every department.
This story has worrying echoes of the controversy over nursing home charges that almost felled Micheal Martin (see here).
Here is my own analysis of the story from this morning's paper:
TO SAY that this June 13 memo will have serious
repercussions for the Government and for Transport Minister Noel Dempsey is the understatement of this relatively new millennium.
From the moment Aer Lingus unleashed a political firestorm by
announcing that it was favouring Belfast over Shannon, the Government was caught on the hop.
In his first reaction, Mr Dempsey seems to have completely misinterpreted the mood of the public. Disappointed for Shannon, delighted for Belfast was the ‘you win some, you lose some’ refrain.
It was only when furious aviation workers, the business community, and politicians (including virtually every Fianna Fáil TD, senator and councillor in the mid-west) started to kick up an almighty fuss that the Government began to get exercised in any way.
But from the start, the core of its very defence was just that it was ‘caught on the hop’. Aer Lingus, it suggested, had presented the decision as a fait accompli; and there was nothing that the Government could do about this bolt out of the blue.
In the Dáil debate on Shannon on September 27, Mr Dempsey said: “At a short meeting with the chairman (John Sharman) and chief executive (Dermot Mannion) of Aer Lingus on the 3rd of August I was informed that they intended to open a hub in Belfast and to transfer the Shannon-Heathrow slots to that route.”
This suggests this was the first time he learned of the decision.
Nor can we ignore the celebrated comments of Minister Willie O’Dea: “Dermot Mannion can’t come along on a bank holiday Monday and turn into a latterday Oliver Cromwell.”
But the explosive Note for the Minister’s Information released to
the Irish Examiner under the FOI Act demolishes that spin.
The first thing that should be noted is that it’s a note to the minister. That’s Noel Dempsey, who said he first learned about the decision on August 3. But this note is dated June 13, some seven weeks earlier.
Sure June 13 is the day before he was appointed to Transport. But he should have nevertheless received this note (soon after his appointment). It doesn’t mince its words.
It states baldly , unceremoniously, that Shannon is on the cusp of losing its Heathrow slots. On its face, the note would lead to the gravest political consequences for Mr Dempsey. No reading of the note would suggest anything other than the airline is close to a decision favouring Belfast.
It goes on to clearly spell out that this would lead to a cessation of the Shannon to Heathrow service.
Politically, Noel Dempsey and the Government were correctly criticised for underestimating the depth of feeling over Shannon and for doing too little too late. But part of its defence was predicated on not learning about the decision until effectively after it was made.
If this Note for the Minister’s Information had been actually forwarded to Mr Dempsey, his last act as Transport Minister would have been to walk the political plank in August once news of the controversy emerged.
And that is why department officials included an unprecedented “contextual note” with the FOI documents, explaining this June 13 note. They knew that implications for Dempsey f the note was read without explanation Mr Dempsey would be a goner.
And that contextual note explains that the note for the minister was drafted by a principal officer in the department, and passed on to an assistant secretary, the second-highest ranking official in the department.
But for a reason that has not been disclosed, the note “was not forwarded to the minister”.
This has echoes of the controversy about then Health Minister Micheál Martin’s degree of awareness of the problem concerning the legal basis of nursing home charges, and his disagreement with his most senior official that a note had been forwarded to him.
The fact that this note was not forwarded is baffling. The contextual note doesn’t explain why. And what is even more baffling is that the so-called contextual note (obviously written in the past few weeks) goes on to state that the assistant secretary, John Murphy, was fully aware of the potentially serious
nature of the Aer Lingus decision.
So concerned was he that on the day that he received the note, he actually rang Dermot Mannion, the chief executive of Air Lingus.
“The assistant secretary conveyed the concerns of the department, from an aviation and regional development perspective, about the implications of a reduction in the Shannon-Heathrow service,” says the contextual note.
Well, the minister was not aware but civil servants at the highest level of
his department were aware of the implications for Shannon from June but had neither informed Mr Dempsey about it then or later. Nor was any effort made during June or July to dissuade Aer Lingus from following a course that was clearly running against the spirit of the Government’s commitment to retain connectivity for Shannon.
It begs several serious questions. Why was the minister not informed? In his Dáil speech, Mr Dempsey said he was informed of the decision on August 3. Was he aware before then that establishing a hub at Belfast was being actively pursued by Aer Lingus and that it would entail the loss of Heathrow slots for Shannon?
When did he find out that his own department had been aware of the
potential cessation of Heathrow services from Shannon since June 13? If he knew (even in August or September), why did he not inform the Dáil or the public about it?
Why were the implications for Shannon from a regional development and aviation perspective not referred to in the original note to the minister? Were the concerns
Mr Murphy expressed to Mr Mannion reduced to writing? Given the Government’s sharp
retrospective criticism of Aer Lingus’s decision, why the inertia from Transport during June and July over a vitally important policy area. There was a break-down somewhere. And you suspect that heads will have to roll.
Monday, September 03, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - AER BLING-US
To lose one chief executive of Aer Lingus may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like callousness.
With apologies to Oscar Wilde, that’s what the Government fears most when it comes to the Shannon Airport mess.
When Willie O’Dea spoke about Armageddon it was about the loss of the Heathrow slots to the mid-west. When the Government thinks of Armageddon, it is a scenario when Dermot Mannion and his top management team walk after being compromised by the Government at an EGM.
Bertie Ahern’s view of Mannion’s predecessor Willie Walsh was jaundiced. It was prompted by what he regarded as Walsh’s audacious cheek at proposing a management buy-out. It got so bad that if Walsh said he was going for walk, Ahern would have gone out of his way to ensure it was along the length of a plank.
Six months later – by which time Walsh had been forced out and had gone to British Airways – you could see that the Anorak was still all ripped up about it.
When Pat Rabbitte asked Ahern in the Dail was he going to give the go-ahead to privatise the airline, the Taoiseach rounded on him, and – by proxy – Willie Walsh.
“I am surprised Deputy Rabbitte is taking up a position that was opposed by every trade unionist in Aer Lingus, when management wanted to steal the assets for themselves through a management buy out, shafting staff interests. Deputy Rabbitte is now defending that position.”
And a little later, he added as an afterthought.
“I am glad those individuals (Willie Walsh and co) went on to prove their worth in the financial marketplace but at least they did not do it by taking the assets away from Aer Lingus.”
Stirring stuff from Red Bertie the Socialist comrade. We were all able to sleep easy in our beds that night. The assets were protected. They had been safely anoraked by the Taoiseach in the Dail.
And then a year later, Aer Lingus was floated. Or about 60% of it was. The employes got about 12% through another ESOT. And the State kept 25.4% which Martin Cullen, the then Transport Minister, told us was a ‘golden share’.
So we still didn’t need to worry about losing the assets. I won’t bore you with the details of the tome Cullen produced last October detailing how that golden share, that magic 25.4%, that cast-iron safeguard against the tyranny of unfettered capitalism would protect Aer Lingus’s assets. And Cullen spelled out what those assets were: they were primarily the Heathrow slots and the services from Dublin, Cork and Shannon.
So what was the difference between Willie Walsh stealing the assets and the Government floating the airline on the private market while retaining a 25.4% ‘golden share’?
None really. Except we got loads of bluster and self-serving bombast from Government when it went down the second avenue.
The golden share! What an abominable business cliché. If Cullen had read his Shakespeare he would have known enough about things that glisten not to mention golden shares.
We learned, when it was sprung on us at the start of August, that pulling the Shannon to Heathrow service was against the Government’s regional and aviation policy and was a disappointment. Though Martin Cullen never told us back in October, the Government knew back then that there was damn all it could do about it. What’s more if Aer Lingus decided to transfer all the Heathrow slots out of Ireland, Bertie the Bystander would live up to his name. He couldn’t do anything about it. Nada. Nothing. And what’s worse, there would be no Willie Walsh to blame.
The Minister for Finance as the nominated Government shareholder could only call an EGM if Aer Lingus ‘disposed of’ (ie sold) the slots rather than transfer them. What’s more, it got advice this week from the Attorney General Paul Gallagher that even if a majority of shareholders ordered management to reverse the decision on Shannon, the service could not be saved at this stage.
The current Transport Minister Noel Dempsey arrived into his Ministry just in time to see that plane take off from the runway. Asked this week about the purpose of the ‘golden share’ he replied that it can help repel a hostile takeover (as happened when RyanAir began huffing and puffing) and will also help prevent the disposal of Heathrow slots.
However, he admitted that down the line all of the Irish slots could be transferred to Dusseldorf or Taipei or Abu Dhabi. He made the fair point that this was highly unlikely, given the sheer volume of air traffic between the two islands of Ireland and Britian. But the point is that, politically, it makes a mockery of the Government’s stern prose from last autumn. It was selling us a pig in a poke back then. And what was worse it knew it.
The following is wild and groundless speculation on my part. But one of the reasons I believe the Government will back Dermot Mannion to the hilt is that otherwise Bertie Ahern will be forced to back an aviation boss he dislikes even more intensely than Willie Walsh.
With apologies to Oscar Wilde, that’s what the Government fears most when it comes to the Shannon Airport mess.
When Willie O’Dea spoke about Armageddon it was about the loss of the Heathrow slots to the mid-west. When the Government thinks of Armageddon, it is a scenario when Dermot Mannion and his top management team walk after being compromised by the Government at an EGM.
Bertie Ahern’s view of Mannion’s predecessor Willie Walsh was jaundiced. It was prompted by what he regarded as Walsh’s audacious cheek at proposing a management buy-out. It got so bad that if Walsh said he was going for walk, Ahern would have gone out of his way to ensure it was along the length of a plank.
Six months later – by which time Walsh had been forced out and had gone to British Airways – you could see that the Anorak was still all ripped up about it.
When Pat Rabbitte asked Ahern in the Dail was he going to give the go-ahead to privatise the airline, the Taoiseach rounded on him, and – by proxy – Willie Walsh.
“I am surprised Deputy Rabbitte is taking up a position that was opposed by every trade unionist in Aer Lingus, when management wanted to steal the assets for themselves through a management buy out, shafting staff interests. Deputy Rabbitte is now defending that position.”
And a little later, he added as an afterthought.
“I am glad those individuals (Willie Walsh and co) went on to prove their worth in the financial marketplace but at least they did not do it by taking the assets away from Aer Lingus.”
Stirring stuff from Red Bertie the Socialist comrade. We were all able to sleep easy in our beds that night. The assets were protected. They had been safely anoraked by the Taoiseach in the Dail.
And then a year later, Aer Lingus was floated. Or about 60% of it was. The employes got about 12% through another ESOT. And the State kept 25.4% which Martin Cullen, the then Transport Minister, told us was a ‘golden share’.
So we still didn’t need to worry about losing the assets. I won’t bore you with the details of the tome Cullen produced last October detailing how that golden share, that magic 25.4%, that cast-iron safeguard against the tyranny of unfettered capitalism would protect Aer Lingus’s assets. And Cullen spelled out what those assets were: they were primarily the Heathrow slots and the services from Dublin, Cork and Shannon.
So what was the difference between Willie Walsh stealing the assets and the Government floating the airline on the private market while retaining a 25.4% ‘golden share’?
None really. Except we got loads of bluster and self-serving bombast from Government when it went down the second avenue.
The golden share! What an abominable business cliché. If Cullen had read his Shakespeare he would have known enough about things that glisten not to mention golden shares.
We learned, when it was sprung on us at the start of August, that pulling the Shannon to Heathrow service was against the Government’s regional and aviation policy and was a disappointment. Though Martin Cullen never told us back in October, the Government knew back then that there was damn all it could do about it. What’s more if Aer Lingus decided to transfer all the Heathrow slots out of Ireland, Bertie the Bystander would live up to his name. He couldn’t do anything about it. Nada. Nothing. And what’s worse, there would be no Willie Walsh to blame.
The Minister for Finance as the nominated Government shareholder could only call an EGM if Aer Lingus ‘disposed of’ (ie sold) the slots rather than transfer them. What’s more, it got advice this week from the Attorney General Paul Gallagher that even if a majority of shareholders ordered management to reverse the decision on Shannon, the service could not be saved at this stage.
The current Transport Minister Noel Dempsey arrived into his Ministry just in time to see that plane take off from the runway. Asked this week about the purpose of the ‘golden share’ he replied that it can help repel a hostile takeover (as happened when RyanAir began huffing and puffing) and will also help prevent the disposal of Heathrow slots.
However, he admitted that down the line all of the Irish slots could be transferred to Dusseldorf or Taipei or Abu Dhabi. He made the fair point that this was highly unlikely, given the sheer volume of air traffic between the two islands of Ireland and Britian. But the point is that, politically, it makes a mockery of the Government’s stern prose from last autumn. It was selling us a pig in a poke back then. And what was worse it knew it.
The following is wild and groundless speculation on my part. But one of the reasons I believe the Government will back Dermot Mannion to the hilt is that otherwise Bertie Ahern will be forced to back an aviation boss he dislikes even more intensely than Willie Walsh.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - OD of O'Dea
It was the dog that didn’t bark who decided it at the end of the day.
A bit like the plot-line of the Hound of the Baskervilles, we were all listening to the wrong dogs barking up the wrong trees.
Over the past week, it was all Willie O’Dea putting on his own end-of-the-pier act. Roll-up! Roll-up! Watch the Minister for Defence in his all new rage and fury show. You think Gordon Brown’s four-hour holiday was self sacrifice? Witness an Irish Government minister who has defied human nature by not taking a holiday for a full two years. Marvel as he builds himself into such a tornado of outrage that he self-immolates before your very eyes.
And, politically, that’s more or less what happened.
As a colleague acidly put it on Thursday: “Willie went one Morning Ireland too far.”
We have not heard a peep out of Bertie Ahern since the controversy first erupted ten days ago. Actually for almost a week, it seemed that the entire Cabinet had become anchorites, with Government Buildings shrouded in a monastic silence.
That was, until Willie O’Dea arrived back from the first holiday he had taken for a full two years. And from there on in, we got a spectacular full-on Broadway production – a chorus line of 100 councillors and co-starring roles for half a dozen local TDs and two junior ministers. But there was only one star.
The Minister for Defence gave a bravura performance of defiance and bluster all week. So much so that you kind of suspected that he was beginning to believe in his own invincibility. He would force, erm, persuade Aer Lingus of the errors of its ways. He spoke of an Armageddon scenario, of the mid-west of Ireland being cut off from the rest of the world because of the loss of Heathrow. Seriously, cut off from the rest of the world.
In his only substantial comments on the controversy, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said he agreed with Dermot Mannion that some of the claims being made about the downside of the Aer Lingus decision were exaggerated.
On Morning Ireland, Willie responded to that in this manner: “(Noel Dempsey) is taking his own advice. In this situation unfortunately that advice does not convey the seriousness of the situation here.”
That was a blooper if ever there was one. The comments served to undermine Dempsey and his authority. O’Dea had clearly overstepped the mark.
And still the dog didn’t bark. Bertie Ahern (still on holidays but apparently working away behind the scenes) said nothing.
But then on Thursday evening, a statement was issued in the name of Education Minister Mary Hanafin. In the second paragraph, it noted that she was “speaking on behalf of the Government”.
The key line came in the next paragraph: “As a listed plc, Aer Lingus has to take its own decisions. It is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in the decision-making of a private company.”
That was it. It was over. Bertie Ahern had not uttered one syllable in ten days. But the mark of the Anorak was all over the statement. O’Dea was now being put firmly in his place. Two of Ahern’s most senior loyalists, Mary Hanafin and Dermot Ahern, were wheeled out to repeat the Government line. Aer Lingus has made its decision and that decision is would stand.
It was the one act of decisiveness by a Government in a fortnight of mess and blunder. At least, Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion knew where he stood before meeting local politicians and business leaders and knew it wasn’t a case of the Government showing him the door, as it did with Willie Walsh.
The stance will be politically unpopular (and that’s as mild an assessment as possible). Ahern and Cabinet ministers will have a rough passage through meetings with its own representatives from the region.
But at the same time you have to also question Willie O’Dea’s judgement. Is he or isn’t he a member of the Cabinet and answerable to collective responsibility? As a Minister, he was party to the decision to privatise Aer Lingus and should be brave enough to live with the consequences (despite what he said this week, the airline did not need to be privatised to raise the funds for fleet replacement). And O’Dea has put local interest above national interest on every occasion – on the deregulation of taxis; on Barrington’s hospital and frequently on Shannon. Other ministers like Dempsey (with an incinerator in Meath) and Micheal Martin (over Cork Airport) have been prepared to take the heat that goes with being a Minister.
And the dog might not have barked this week. But boy, did it still have a fierce bite.
This is my column from today's Irish Examiner
A bit like the plot-line of the Hound of the Baskervilles, we were all listening to the wrong dogs barking up the wrong trees.
Over the past week, it was all Willie O’Dea putting on his own end-of-the-pier act. Roll-up! Roll-up! Watch the Minister for Defence in his all new rage and fury show. You think Gordon Brown’s four-hour holiday was self sacrifice? Witness an Irish Government minister who has defied human nature by not taking a holiday for a full two years. Marvel as he builds himself into such a tornado of outrage that he self-immolates before your very eyes.
And, politically, that’s more or less what happened.
As a colleague acidly put it on Thursday: “Willie went one Morning Ireland too far.”
We have not heard a peep out of Bertie Ahern since the controversy first erupted ten days ago. Actually for almost a week, it seemed that the entire Cabinet had become anchorites, with Government Buildings shrouded in a monastic silence.
That was, until Willie O’Dea arrived back from the first holiday he had taken for a full two years. And from there on in, we got a spectacular full-on Broadway production – a chorus line of 100 councillors and co-starring roles for half a dozen local TDs and two junior ministers. But there was only one star.
The Minister for Defence gave a bravura performance of defiance and bluster all week. So much so that you kind of suspected that he was beginning to believe in his own invincibility. He would force, erm, persuade Aer Lingus of the errors of its ways. He spoke of an Armageddon scenario, of the mid-west of Ireland being cut off from the rest of the world because of the loss of Heathrow. Seriously, cut off from the rest of the world.
In his only substantial comments on the controversy, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said he agreed with Dermot Mannion that some of the claims being made about the downside of the Aer Lingus decision were exaggerated.
On Morning Ireland, Willie responded to that in this manner: “(Noel Dempsey) is taking his own advice. In this situation unfortunately that advice does not convey the seriousness of the situation here.”
That was a blooper if ever there was one. The comments served to undermine Dempsey and his authority. O’Dea had clearly overstepped the mark.
And still the dog didn’t bark. Bertie Ahern (still on holidays but apparently working away behind the scenes) said nothing.
But then on Thursday evening, a statement was issued in the name of Education Minister Mary Hanafin. In the second paragraph, it noted that she was “speaking on behalf of the Government”.
The key line came in the next paragraph: “As a listed plc, Aer Lingus has to take its own decisions. It is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in the decision-making of a private company.”
That was it. It was over. Bertie Ahern had not uttered one syllable in ten days. But the mark of the Anorak was all over the statement. O’Dea was now being put firmly in his place. Two of Ahern’s most senior loyalists, Mary Hanafin and Dermot Ahern, were wheeled out to repeat the Government line. Aer Lingus has made its decision and that decision is would stand.
It was the one act of decisiveness by a Government in a fortnight of mess and blunder. At least, Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion knew where he stood before meeting local politicians and business leaders and knew it wasn’t a case of the Government showing him the door, as it did with Willie Walsh.
The stance will be politically unpopular (and that’s as mild an assessment as possible). Ahern and Cabinet ministers will have a rough passage through meetings with its own representatives from the region.
But at the same time you have to also question Willie O’Dea’s judgement. Is he or isn’t he a member of the Cabinet and answerable to collective responsibility? As a Minister, he was party to the decision to privatise Aer Lingus and should be brave enough to live with the consequences (despite what he said this week, the airline did not need to be privatised to raise the funds for fleet replacement). And O’Dea has put local interest above national interest on every occasion – on the deregulation of taxis; on Barrington’s hospital and frequently on Shannon. Other ministers like Dempsey (with an incinerator in Meath) and Micheal Martin (over Cork Airport) have been prepared to take the heat that goes with being a Minister.
And the dog might not have barked this week. But boy, did it still have a fierce bite.
This is my column from today's Irish Examiner
Sunday, August 12, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - LOOK UP IT'S AER LINGUS AND A FLYING PIG
On Politics
Harry McGee
Politics, during the summer, is as dead as vaudeville. Of course at the same time we need to ink our pages, even during the most taciturn and underwhelming days of silly season.
Since the dawn of civilisation, government ministers tend to disappear during August leaving one or two ministers on duty during the month.
On very slow weeks, somebody will mention at a news conference that the Taoiseach is out of the country.
That will lead to the inevitable question from a senior editorial person: “Well if he’s abroad, who else had skived off? And who has been left behind to run the country?”
Occasionally, fate will deliver a golden hand and intelligence will come back confirming that the only minister who’s still around is the most junior, gaffe-prone, incompetent, ill-regarded and generally hated minister.
The next step in the process will be to find a crisis of some kind– no matter how unimportant or infinitesimally small – and then take the silk purse (a marginal rise in unemployment figures; some hospital cock-up) and make a proper pig’s ear of it.
CRISIS AND LOOK WHO’S LEFT RUNNING THE COUNTRY? will scream the (totally unjustified and totally over-the-top) headline, the following morning.
Yes, it’s cynical and it can be a cheap shot. But it can also be highly effective. John Prescott was Tony Blair’s deputy prime minister and the man in charge of the country when the PM was abroad. But the man who was nominally running the country was photographer playing croquet with his staff in his summer residence. That did untold damage to the country.
Last Sunday we saw this at the worst when the Sunday Independent launched Scuds of outrage and bombast in the direction of Tánaiste Brian Cowen. His crime? He had gone off on holidays to the Algarve. The crisis? The housing market had collapsed and the economy was in freefall. I don’t know about you but somehow I didn’t notice Armageddon last weekend. It just seemed to pass me right by.
The fact is that crises during the summer are more manufactured than real. The last really deep crisis to beset a government here happened in the summer of 1982 with the sensational news that a double murder suspect Malcolm Macarthur had been staying in the flat of the then Attorney General, Patrick Connolly. The A-G was due to fly out on his holidays to the US the next day and refused to alter his plans. The Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, was on his holiday island of Inisvickilaun and either at the end of either a very bad line or a very good wine. When first contacted he didn’t grasp the depth of the crisis. The following day – when all hell broke loose – he cottoned on very quickly.
But then,
Then just when we though silly season had reached its nadir, along comes a real crisis. Not only did it catch the Government completely off guard, it also found both main opposition parties with their eye off the ball – their transport spokespeople were nowhere to be seen (or heard) earlier this week.
What was extraordinary about the Aer Lingus story was that, for once, the ‘who’s left running the country?’ attack was valid. Since the its announcement on Tuesday, the Government has given us the benefit of one full sentence. The Taoiseach won’t speak. The Minister for Transport won’t speak. The Minister for Enterprise won’t speak. The Minister for Finance won’t speak. And only belatedly did the Minister for Defence speak. Willie O’Dea said he was aghast at the disgraceful decision. Sure, wasn’t everybody in the mid-west similarly aghast.
The question for O’Dea is: what is the Government going to do about it? It’s all very well for Willie O’Dea to criticise Aer Lingus but if the Taoiseach and the relevant government ministers are not going to do anything, or not even going to say anything, all he’s involved in is a exercise to give him political cover.
The Government made a huge play about safeguarding Heathrow slots and ensuring balanced regional connectivity when it allowed Aer Lingus to cut the apron strings. Was this part of an under-the-table deal? Did senior Government ministers really only learn last Friday? Why didn’t the Government use its 25.4% shareholding as leverage?
The capitulation of deed and word has been a disgrace. And the Government’s continuing silence is an insult to the people of the mid-west and also to its back-bench TDs. The problem with third-term governments isn’t that the citizens begin to grow indifferent to them; it’s that they begin to grow indifferent to the citizens.
Harry McGee
Politics, during the summer, is as dead as vaudeville. Of course at the same time we need to ink our pages, even during the most taciturn and underwhelming days of silly season.
Since the dawn of civilisation, government ministers tend to disappear during August leaving one or two ministers on duty during the month.
On very slow weeks, somebody will mention at a news conference that the Taoiseach is out of the country.
That will lead to the inevitable question from a senior editorial person: “Well if he’s abroad, who else had skived off? And who has been left behind to run the country?”
Occasionally, fate will deliver a golden hand and intelligence will come back confirming that the only minister who’s still around is the most junior, gaffe-prone, incompetent, ill-regarded and generally hated minister.
The next step in the process will be to find a crisis of some kind– no matter how unimportant or infinitesimally small – and then take the silk purse (a marginal rise in unemployment figures; some hospital cock-up) and make a proper pig’s ear of it.
CRISIS AND LOOK WHO’S LEFT RUNNING THE COUNTRY? will scream the (totally unjustified and totally over-the-top) headline, the following morning.
Yes, it’s cynical and it can be a cheap shot. But it can also be highly effective. John Prescott was Tony Blair’s deputy prime minister and the man in charge of the country when the PM was abroad. But the man who was nominally running the country was photographer playing croquet with his staff in his summer residence. That did untold damage to the country.
Last Sunday we saw this at the worst when the Sunday Independent launched Scuds of outrage and bombast in the direction of Tánaiste Brian Cowen. His crime? He had gone off on holidays to the Algarve. The crisis? The housing market had collapsed and the economy was in freefall. I don’t know about you but somehow I didn’t notice Armageddon last weekend. It just seemed to pass me right by.
The fact is that crises during the summer are more manufactured than real. The last really deep crisis to beset a government here happened in the summer of 1982 with the sensational news that a double murder suspect Malcolm Macarthur had been staying in the flat of the then Attorney General, Patrick Connolly. The A-G was due to fly out on his holidays to the US the next day and refused to alter his plans. The Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, was on his holiday island of Inisvickilaun and either at the end of either a very bad line or a very good wine. When first contacted he didn’t grasp the depth of the crisis. The following day – when all hell broke loose – he cottoned on very quickly.
But then,
Then just when we though silly season had reached its nadir, along comes a real crisis. Not only did it catch the Government completely off guard, it also found both main opposition parties with their eye off the ball – their transport spokespeople were nowhere to be seen (or heard) earlier this week.
What was extraordinary about the Aer Lingus story was that, for once, the ‘who’s left running the country?’ attack was valid. Since the its announcement on Tuesday, the Government has given us the benefit of one full sentence. The Taoiseach won’t speak. The Minister for Transport won’t speak. The Minister for Enterprise won’t speak. The Minister for Finance won’t speak. And only belatedly did the Minister for Defence speak. Willie O’Dea said he was aghast at the disgraceful decision. Sure, wasn’t everybody in the mid-west similarly aghast.
The question for O’Dea is: what is the Government going to do about it? It’s all very well for Willie O’Dea to criticise Aer Lingus but if the Taoiseach and the relevant government ministers are not going to do anything, or not even going to say anything, all he’s involved in is a exercise to give him political cover.
The Government made a huge play about safeguarding Heathrow slots and ensuring balanced regional connectivity when it allowed Aer Lingus to cut the apron strings. Was this part of an under-the-table deal? Did senior Government ministers really only learn last Friday? Why didn’t the Government use its 25.4% shareholding as leverage?
The capitulation of deed and word has been a disgrace. And the Government’s continuing silence is an insult to the people of the mid-west and also to its back-bench TDs. The problem with third-term governments isn’t that the citizens begin to grow indifferent to them; it’s that they begin to grow indifferent to the citizens.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
