We might be experiencing a little turbulence!

I grew up so near Dublin Airport that I always presumed  as a child that there was no difference between Aer Lingus and Dublin Airport.  Up the northside you cannot underestimate what Dublin Airport, Aer Lingus and Ryanair mean to the local economy.  Aviation nowadays is enormous.  25% of all aircraft operated around the world are either Irish operated, leased,  financed or registered.  We’ve come a long way since I was a kid.

So when Fianna Fail privatised a majority stake holding in Aer Lingus 9 years ago there was concern at what that might eventually mean.  The purchase by Ryanair of a large stake of the company with a view to a proposed merger raised concerns about a monopoly.  Now there is a final proposal from IAG the owners of British Airways to buy Aer Lingus.

My concern at how the debate has gone seems to focus on Heathrow and access to Ireland from London.  Isn’t there something 1980’s about all that?  Sure London is very important and there needs to be access to international flights, there is real concern that jobs will go as the larger group will provide synergies, the sale of the last public influence in Aer Lingus will expose the former state airline to full blooded hard nosed business.  The strings will be cut and the notion of the Department of transport being the downtown office of Aer Lingus will be consigned to history. Due to EU rules it is sink or swim in aviation.  Just look at how Cyprus Air folded a few weeks ago, leaving another island without control over its own access.

There are other issues that don’t seem to register.  Firstly Dublin Airport is itself developing into a hub as passengers from the UK take transatlantic flights. 25% of Aer Lingus transatlantic passengers originate elsewhere in Europe and join a flight here.  The stands at Dublin Airport for wide body aircraft are at 100% usage as it is, even with the new Terminal 2.  I don’t know where the room that IAG claim they have to expand Aer Lingus long haul services out of Dublin may be.  An A 380 which is the long haul aircraft of the future will need a longer runway than what Dublin has at present to take off fully loaded to travel long haul.
 I also think that IAG will get more out of the deal than the present shareholders.  Aer Lingus happens to have about €400M in cash, the total sale of government shares would only realise about €320M for the state.  IAG propose to give the state cash up front, but what else is there in this for the government? 

Dublin Airport on the other hand carries 75% of all airline passengers from Ireland.  What is the attraction for Irish passengers to Heathrow as a hub?  If you’re travelling to Australia it is faster to travel by Ethiad or Emirates to make just one stop rather than two travelling by Heathrow.  There are 15 destinations from Dublin in North America. Again it’s faster to connect there.  There are 2 separate issues; what is in the interest of Aer Lingus to ensure it has a role into the future and secondly how do you get more planes landing in Ireland?  There’s more to Irish aviation than just Dublin Airport. 

Dublin and Shannon have one plus and that is immigration clearance for the US.  There is enormous to potential to develop westwards across the Atlantic.  Heathrow is simply in the wrong place for that.  What is in the strategic interest of Aer Lingus is the need to work with a Middle Eastern or North American airline. 

What is important is that we have daily connections to San Francisco so as to develop industrial policy with the IT industry.  What is important is that air transport facilitates the development of the country.  What seems to me is that IAG are thinking IAG first and Ireland second. That's why they want the entire shareholding, pitching cleverly at a price that might attract Ryanair to sell and under stock exchange rules taking the company private but within IAG.  For me it’s not good enough to sell what Fianna Fail left behind on the shelf.   I’d hold on to the states shares.

Head and shoulders above the protesters

I’ve always regarded President Higgins highly.  He’s a very able and articulate man who is passionate about the people of our state.  He’s being deliberately targeted by anti water charge protesters.  It’s very unfair to him, those who organise events, our citizens and our state.  The personal abuse of him and his wife Sabina is completely unacceptable.

The reason why Higgins is being targeted is because it was wrongly believed by supporters of the Right to Water, Sinn Fein and Socialist Workers Party that the President should not sign into law the legislation to introduce new lower water charges in December.

In fact the President refers the legislation only after consulting with the Council of State to the Supreme Court.  When the Supreme Court makes a decision that decision cannot be challenged again.  In other word the President can be ordered to sign the bill and no citizen can ever challenge it if the court finds in favour of the government.  If the Court finds against the bill it can be sent back to the Oireachtás where it can be partly amended and the bill then passed and it has to be signed.

Politicians know how the Supreme Court works, Paul Murphy has a law degree.  Here’s a suggestion, would Paul have not been better employed using his legal skills to challenge the act through the courts, if he thinks he has a case?  You see at the back of many minds there is the view that R2W, SF, SWP Socialist Party egos are driving a publicity campaign that is not about water but about the next election and winding up the electorate.  If the president had referred the bill one wonders what the campaigns response would have been to judges making the decision on this case?

It is appalling that the Presidency which is above politics is being dragged into a political dispute. This controversy could if it continues harm the office of president, one Irish political office which still has an enormous international prestige.

There is an onus on people organising campaigns to take responsibility for everything that happens.  That is not happening in all cases.  You cannot go some of the way with people you bring on the streets and when things take a turn, say, “well that’s got nothing to do with me”. The petrol bombing of a TD’s office, the telephoning of threats to the constituency office of Alan Kelly, the abuse of Labour councillor Martina Genockey during the local election campaign and of course the targeting of Joan Burton in Jobstown.  There just some of the high profile cases, all of us know that there are many others.

Recent comments by local Wexford People Before Profit councillor that Wexford councillors would be advised to listen to her mandate and allow protests within the council building by her supporters, because if they don’t she won’t otherwise be responsible for what will happen typifies the part threat,  part gutless abdication of responsibility that has become typical of a campaign that is more about publicity than fact.  

I’ve organised and taken part in more than my own fair share of protests.  Any protest should have an objective.  I can’t see what the objective is in Thursday’s protest in Dublin nor indeed the point in posting youtube footage that so damages their own campaign.   The R2W campaign should do the decent thing and apologise for what went on to the President, his wife, Colaiste Eoin and the community it serves.

For a man of small stature, President Higgins stands miles well above his detractors.

Licked!

Whisper it! Enda Kenny will still be Taoiseach in 2 years time.  As much as the political focus is on the General Election which is still over a year away, there is at the moment only one obvious outcome.  The recent interview with Gerry Adams tacitly accepts this.  He says that he may not be the Sinn Fein  nominee for the office.  Given the significance of 2016 and the fact that he drove the SF policy of achieving power with the ballot box and the armalite, if it wasn’t about achieving power in Leinster House then where was it about? Seems a strange thing for Gerry Adams to say after over 35 years as President of Sinn Fein?

Since 2011 Fianna Fail have gained very little in real support in national polls, Labour as part of an outgoing government will be hoping to get back as a partner party, then despite what media and people say about Kenny, there is no other show in town.

The real election is within Fine Gael, its Leo versus Simon. It’s an open secret that if Leo is in the paper on Sunday, Simon will be on Morning Ireland the following morning.  The pair of them cannot wait for 2017 to see who can take over from Kenny.  It’s getting a bit tedious.  Simon’s real mistake is not so much dumping Labour out of his calculation but his presumption that he’s going to be playing a key role in a government with Fianna Fail.  Does he really think that Martin McGrath and himself are all going to be senior cabinet Ministers in his dream coalition?  3 cabinet ministers from the one constituency in the country?  12 representing the other 42?  Often Simon makes a presumption which is not based on nothing other than wishful thinking.

Simon spent last Summer doing the rounds of the farming industry saying his farewells and wishing the incoming  agricultural minister after the reshuffle well. Can you imagine his disappointment when Enda Kenny told him he was going nowhere and reappointed him to Agriculture?  Still better in than out.  But Simon is at least still mentioned in dispatches .  The succession is Leo’s to lose.

Which brings me to Sinn Fein.  Remember the old adage never wish for something, just in case you get it?  Well in the run in to the UK General Election Sinn Fein are a bit miffed that Martin McGuinness is not allowed to debate with other party leaders.  Given that SF have no intention of turning up in Westminster regardless of their policy, one wonders as to the value of anything they say in that poll.

Perhaps they may be saved an embarrassment on a wider stage.  While Long Kesh was regarded as the university for republicans there sure was no economics department on campus in Gerry’s time as evident by tonight’s debate between Gerry Adams and Joan Burton with Claire Byrne.

Adam’s inability to understand his own basic figures, dismissing the reality that there is nothing left for a government to spend jars, owning 2 houses and saying that there was nothing wrong with the property market.  Burton’s  grasp of what is achievable in a sustained way is not challenged by Adams who focuses on the notional idea taxing incomes of over €100K and a naive notion that people will not tax evade!  Has he ever heard of Michael Lowry?

The nadir of the debate for Adams was when Burton pointed back to Adams that Connolly said that without its people, Ireland meant nothing.  Seems that Gerry Adams has had a tough night but that the going will get tougher. Perhaps he should have had a word with Simon Coveney earlier in the night?  

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

Once upon a time people compared Ireland to Iceland simply because their banks collapsed at the same time.  Both countries set about addressing the problems all be it in different ways with different impacts on their citizens.  No 2 countries have identical economies but when something as fundamental to any economy as a banking system collapses the reality is that no sector in that economy will escape the implications.

What dragged the Irish state down in 2010 was the reliance of the states coffers on the property sector which the bank fuelled with cheap money.  The then government’s failure to address spending added to the catastrophic decision to guarantee all bank deposits and their failure to identify how deep that banking pit had become did for us.  Their cronyism with the bankers and builders condemned generations regardless of what government would be in office to underpinning the casino capitalism which deregulation primed.  Can you remember the call for citizens; “Where’s my bail out”?.

What actually saved this country was membership of the euro.  If we had the punt, the debt would have been in foreign currency and the punt would have lost international value as interest rates would have climbed.  By now national debt would have crucified society, we’d have no hope.

Which brings me to Greece.  Tonight we will know the result of their election.  The likely winners Syriza started the election with a swagger and a list of promises.  One senior member quoted on RTE’s Drivetime this week said that if they keep just 3 of the 10 promises they make he’ll be happy.

The suggestion of Greek burning bondholders, leaving the Euro and debt default is off the agenda.  At best the Syriza spokesperson says they’ll press for a European debt conference for a write down.  Accessing the ECB’s wall of money  (otherwise called QE) requires each state including Greece to stand over whatever money is printed for that state through bond buying.

This week’s move by the ECB may in time have more influence on Europe than the Greek elections.  Greece was allowed into the Euro without real diligence being paid to the reality of Greek finances.  The Greeks have paid hugely for this.  Hospitals closed all around the country, no rail service to the Peloponnese, transport to islands cut, social welfare slashed with huge numbers of public servants let go. Heavy taxes imposed on a people where tax was by all accounts voluntary. Retirement age raised to that elsewhere in Europe.  There is little extra money in Greece’s economy, there was no suggestion as there is in Ireland of an economic pick-up.

So when the Greeks come knocking asking for another break, one can understand why Irish or Portuguese citizens might just ask “What about my bail out?”. Greece has been cut more than its fair share of slack in the last 7 years by countries like Ireland.  I’ve no problem with a Debt Conference but what about crediting those countries like Ireland that actually dealt with its debt at such conferences?

Any lender will ask themselves just one question before they loan and it is this; “Will I get my money back?”.  If a lender throws more money after bad debt, they may enter any conference on debt with a less than positive attitude. What can Syriza do then?