Aer Lingus asked its cabin crew to accept a four-year pay freeze, new yellow-pack starting rates and cuts to both sick pay and duty allowances. Staff are being told: "Go back in the sky, wear a sunny smile and put your lipstick on, but do not forgot the hair shirt." To the credit of the workers, they voted by 80%-plus to reject that package. The company has now threatened these mainly women workers with a unilateral imposition of even more draconian terms, including temporary lay-offs for senior staff and freezing the pay of those senior staff at 60% of what it was previously. Similar retaliation is expected against ground staff should the result of their ballot, expected tonight, also be a "No".

What kind of message does it send to the country if front-line workers who kept this country connected through 18 months of a pandemic are allowed to be treated in this way? What does it say about the Government if it allows that? The State pays a large share of this company's wage bill through the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS. The State provided Aer Lingus with €150 million in debt funding in February through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. Is the Government prepared to use the leverage this provides it with to protect these workers from such abuse? If not, why not?

The airline industry was hit hard by the pandemic but Aer Lingus had €900 million in reserve when it began. The tide is now starting to turn in aviation. Last week, Michael O'Leary said that Ryanair flew 67% of its normal passenger numbers in August and forecast a dramatic increase in holiday tourism next year. Airlines will seek to make up for lost profits in a post-pandemic world and this can come not merely at the expense of their workers but also that of less profitable routes.

Can the Tánaiste guarantee that Aer Lingus will continue to provide the level of connectivity the Irish people need and deserve? Are the 23 Heathrow slots guaranteed? The US is opening up in November. Shannon Airport remains closed. Will all the routes from Ireland to US cities be restarted and guaranteed into the future? I do not think the Tánaiste can guarantee that they will be. An airline which shows such lack of loyalty to its staff cannot be relied upon to show loyalty to the country either. Aer Lingus's bottom line is to serve the interests of shareholders not the interests of the Irish people. For this reason, I support the renationalisation of Aer Lingus. The Aer Lingus unions should support and campaign for this position too. Where does the Government stand on that issue and, crucially, where does it stand on the rights of workers in a company so heavily subsidised by this State?

As we all know, aviation is one of the sectors worst affected by the pandemic. Many airlines have experienced a severe drop in revenue and are facing degrees of financial challenge. The aviation recovery in Ireland has been much slower than in other states. We are back to about 50% of where we were. As the Deputy outlined, Ryanair, which operates all across Europe, points out that the rest of Europe is about 70% back to where it was. Aer Lingus in particular has been affected to a larger extent than other airlines due to its reliance on the slow-recovering Irish market and the transatlantic market. Data show that the Irish aviation market is experiencing a slower recovery than the majority of its European counterparts. In addition, Aer Lingus's transatlantic network has yet to recover to any great extent due to the travel restrictions that remain in place in the United States.

The announcement made by the US Government that it is going to lift travel restrictions for fully vaccinated travellers from Ireland, the UK and the rest of Europe in November is therefore a very welcome development and should help us to begin the recovery in transatlantic services. It will be very welcome for families, many of whom have not seen friends and relations in the United States for a long time, and for business too because there is so much trade between the United States and Ireland and so many people have not been able to visit their businesses or co-workers.

On the industrial relations matters the Deputy raises, he will be aware that these are matters for the company, Aer Lingus, and its respective trade unions. Both the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and the Labour Court, which are Government offices under the aegis of my Department, are available to assist if called upon. We want to make clear to the company and to the unions that the WRC and the Labour Court are available should their services be needed and should Government intervention be warranted.

In terms of the Deputy's question on connectivity, nobody can give him any guarantees on that. It is quite simple: connectivity happens when a route is viable, when the cost of running the aeroplane is matched by the fares that passengers pay. What we need to do now is to make flights viable in order that we can have connectivity. The Government will help with this. We are working on a package of financial support for airlines and airports to encourage them to restore those routes. We need to do what other governments across Europe are doing to make sure that the aeroplanes that are flying again are flying in and out of Ireland and that we restore that connectivity. Fundamentally, a route is only viable if the cost of running it is matched by the fares that come in. One needs to have fares coming in and one needs to keep costs under control.

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class...that's making war, and we're winning." They are not the words of a socialist or trade union militant but those of American billionaire, Warren Buffet. They are words that are very relevant in this case. In 2019, IAG made an operating profit of more than €2.5 billion, more than four times the temporary Aer Lingus losses. Meanwhile, workers with families have to fork out rents greater than their pandemic wage and rely on parents to help finance their weekly food shop. Workers need to get organised to protect their interests. Any worker who wants help in getting organised in this instance can contact my office and we will do our best. The revival of air traffic gives workers increased leverage and some potential power. So too does the fact that the Taoiseach and the Ministers – Deputies Coveney, Michael McGrath and Darragh O'Brien – represent airport constituencies. It is time for workers to pile the pressure on these politicians who are subsidising a company while it wages a war on its own workforce.

I thank the Deputy. The only person who is interested in class warfare in this House is probably him and maybe some of the colleagues around him, and he is interested in it because he hopes to benefit from it politically and electorally, and that is his choice. What we are interested in on this side of the House is saving businesses and saving jobs and that includes Aer Lingus. That is why we have done what we have done. The subsidy the Deputy referred to, the employment wage subsidy scheme, is helping to keep people in their jobs. There are people in the Deputy’s constituency in Cork who would have been laid off for the last couple of weeks were it not for the Government's wage subsidy scheme ensuring they could be kept on the payroll. That is why we are providing funding to airports like Shannon, Cork and Dublin to help them get through this period. That is why we brought in things like the digital Covid certificate to enable people to travel again. We are absolutely committed to getting aviation going again. It can be done but it needs people working together; it does not need warfare.