I note that those promoting the takeover of Aer Lingus by British Airways have had a free run in the media today - on two radio stations and headlines in two newspapers, the Irish Independent and The Irish Times. Those of us who are responsible for the 25% stake in the company that the public owns are constrained by ridiculous takeover rules from the Irish Stock Exchange and we cannot answer back. I assure our friends in the media that it is not just the people of north Dublin or in the regions of Ireland who are concerned about anti-competitiveness mergers by legacy airlines. It is also a respectable position to hold in international economics journals. I want the media to stop trying to portray the opponents as some kind of plastic Paddies or something holding out for something that does not have a future. This airline does have a future. We must ask people to look at the record of British Airways in the United Kingdom. It is now smaller than easyJet by far. It is smaller than Ryanair in its own country. It totally neglects Scotland. There are no services from Scotland on the north Atlantic route operated by British Airways. It neglects its own regions. It has reduced services in Manchester and Birmingham.

The view that Aer Lingus which currently carries 11 million passengers cannot grow is belied by the fact that this is where Ryanair and easyJet were placed at the beginning of the century. Now one has increased passenger numbers to 60 million while the other has increased numbers to 100 million. There might be a period of consolidation but it has been mostly by legacy airlines. The two new airlines in Europe - easyJet and Ryanair - carry far more passengers than any of the legacy airlines. Let us not allow this stigmatisation of the opponents of the sale of the airline as backwoods men prevent a full debate. The onus is on British Airways to present proper figures and not media briefings of the kind we saw yesterday and today. The Government should not be constrained in getting the best deal for Ireland for its 25% by the ridiculous takeover rules of the Irish Stock Exchange. I have written to the Governor of the Central Bank who appoints two members to the takeover panel. It is surely an imbalance where the person trying to do the takeover gets free reign and the people trying to fight it off are muzzled. That is not the way a vital national asset should be treated.