Mary Coughlan performance as Employment Minister

He wants the hanger.

He is using the media effectively to get it.

DAA have a Board & Aer Lingus have a lease.

But Hey! Government should put pressure on the board and nullify a legal lease.
 
Would be interesting to know how the Aer Lingus got the lease to that hanger? Was there open market competition for the lease?
 
Vanity is at the heart of this hanger dispute, hanger 6 unless I'm mistaken is that nice big modern building on your right as you enter the airport. If in Ryanair hands O'Leary could easily put up some big Welcome to Ryanair signs on it, or even some hurtful banners.

Also to the layperson it seems big enough and well placed enough to at some stage even be turned into a terminal - a low cost one even. While that's fanciful I'm sure if it was out of DAA hands they'd have all sorts of nightmares about what could happen.

The DAA aren't going to let Ryanair have the most prestigious standalone real estate in the airport without a fight - just as well they've their buddies in FF onside.
A few hundred jobs are inconsequential to the egos in the DAA, and sadly it seems our ironically titled Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

I note now she's looking for a business plan. This might seem outwardly professional except that Ryanair's customer for the servicing will be Ryanair, from a business point of view that simplifies things so much that the business plan is plainly obvious.

This isn't a startup looking for money, what's the point in asking an admittedly annoying but extremely successful company to prove they know what they're doing when picking a location to service their planes. How about we see Coughlan's emigration based business plan for the economy
 
I wonder how many of Micko's 300 jobs are real jobs, and how many will be 'agency' jobs, with the workers employed by some Latvian employment agency, to ensure that Irish employment law can be safely ignored?
 
... the plot thickens, where are the aer lingus workers....
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What a silly question. They are taking a union-negotiated, employer-approved tea break, probably with the bould Mary C.
 
Complainer said:
I wonder how many of Micko's 300 jobs are real jobs, and how many will be 'agency' jobs, with the workers employed by some Latvian employment agency, to ensure that Irish employment law can be safely ignored?
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I take from that you are in favour of protectionism, keeping the have-nots away from the opportunity to earn good money in a high cost economy. It's just as well that the Americans, Germans and British didn't share your views between 1950 and 1990. If they had then they would have kept our emigrants out and their money at home and we’d still be the economy that capital forgot. You don’t strike me as a Dev fan and you are certainly no fool so I don’t see comely maidens and frugal comfort fitting into your vision of what Ireland should be but without foreign direct investment and the decades of emigrants sending money back here, earned by undercutting local labour, said maidens and frugality would be all we’d have.

I’m not convinced that Ryan Air are doing anything other than stirring the pot or that these jobs were ever really on the table, but I have no issue with people from other countries working here.
 
mathepac said:
What a silly question. They are taking a union-negotiated, employer-approved tea break, probably with the bould Mary C.
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What an equally silly reply !
All employees , unionised or not , are entitled under working time act to tea breaks , employer approval doesn't enter the equation.
Try not to let your anti union bias cloud the issue in question.
 
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So no deal. I would normally discribe myself as a MOL fan however I do wonder if he was sincere about this facility. It seems he will only do a deal if he gets this specific hanger. Why not have a purpose-built hanger constructed? Surely he cannot expect to have the legal occupiers evicted just because he has more jobs to offer? This whole story has a bad smell to it.
 
gunnerfitzy said:
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so no deal. I would normally discribe myself as a mol fan however i do wonder if he was sincere about this facility. It seems he will only do a deal if he gets this specific hanger. Why not have a purpose-built hanger constructed? Surely he cannot expect to have the legal occupiers evicted just because he has more jobs to offer? This whole story has a bad smell to it.
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+1
 
Karma baby! DAA has never played fair. Bolstered by that gravel voiced harridan from Westmeath, the seeds of this spat were sown years ago. Why do that bunch of arrogant, overpaid muppets in Leinster House continue to villify O leary's incredible enterprize. They have, from the start of his meteoric rise, used the DAA to 'keep him in his place'. This has been a spectacular failure, yet they insist on carrying on the charade. Where are the equally inept opposition? Drinking pints in the departure lounge?
 
Michael O'Leary would never pass up the opportunity to show up the government or DAA but it sounds like he has a valid point. Hanger 6 was designed for heavy maintainence but Aer Lingus gets all of that done in France now. He has made a better arguement for Aer Lingus to move to a smaller hanger than the government has of not moving them. Ryanair and the government own 60% of Aer lingus anyway so surely they make a decision to save jobs.
Both sides are sticking to their guns but if O'Leary gets his way 300 jobs may be created, whereas no jobs will be created if the government doesn't chnage its position.
 
gunnerfitzy said:
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.... This whole story has a bad smell to it.
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My exact feeling from the start. So much so when it "broke" I actually felt sorry for Coughlan. I think her reply in writing was reasonable. Yes the state and IDA do and will be party to negotiations, but MOL's starting point was unreasonable.

This stuff about if it were BA or Microsoft is largely rubbish for the main reason that those companies would have negotiated with the owner of the property directly. MOL refused (with good reason or not) to even speak to the DAA, if after he had tried and discussion broke down, then it would have been appropriate for the government and IDA to step in.

Again, he even said if it were the likes of Microsoft, the government would have "built them a park". Very true, but then that implies Microsoft would be flexible in their arrangements and wouldn't insist on one building and only one building. I mean, what about locating it at Shannon? But that's not on MOL's agenda, nothing beyond Hanger 6 will be considered.

For all the incompetence of Coughlan, I'm thinking of hanging up my voting boots. I could have written the response from the opposition in my sleep, on the back of a fag packet. I give up. How much political rope do you need to give to an opposition to show their worth and might? And yet again we get by the book, poor attempts at political point scoring.

The MOL situation is seedy, but Coughlan also mishandled the whole thing. 500 jobs is no laughing matter and there could have been less direct means of state intervention.
 
I don’t believe that there were ever 500, or even 300, job for Dublin. Ryan Air are way too smart to open a facility like that in Dublin where costs are high and they will have to pay the DAA for each plane that takes off or lands. I see this as a publicity stunt combined with PR spin to deflect what would have been major criticism when they placed the jobs in another country. Now he can blame the government and walk away smelling of roses.
 
I tend to agree - he ended the meeting after 45 mins with the minister...clearly not the actions of someone who really wanted something.

Also begs the question - what kind of value are shareholders of Aer Lingus getting when it has a (presumably expensive) vacant maintenance hangar in Dublin when employing maintenance staff in France?
 
Purple said:
Ryan Air are way too smart to open a facility like that in Dublin where costs are high
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In an alternative business plan put forward last year, employees were willing to take a 20% cut in wages to keep the operation open. Combined with having a ready made facility and fully trained staff ready to go it might have been a runner. He put it to the government to call his bluff. I aggree however that O'Leary would never pass up a chance for a PR stunt. I suppose we will never know now.
 
Shawady said:
In an alternative business plan put forward last year, employees were willing to take a 20% cut in wages to keep the operation open. Combined with having a ready made facility and fully trained staff ready to go it might have been a runner. He put it to the government to call his bluff. I aggree however that O'Leary would never pass up a chance for a PR stunt. I suppose we will never know now.
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I presume he (and others) allowed time to elapse before talking about taking over some of the capacity/ facilities of SRT because they didn’t want to face any of the TUPE obligations. From a business point of view this was the correct decision. The real question is did the DAA know that Ryan Air were sniffing around hanger 6 and if they did then why did they sign a lease with Aer Lingus in December when they could have made more money directly, and indirectly, from Ryan Air. Remember that every plane that is serviced there has to land and take off at the airport, incurring all related charges.
 
It will be a cold day in hell before Michael O'Leary gives a hoot about 300 jobs in Ireland or anywhere else.
 
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