“Aer Lingus has been cavalier with Shannon staff.”

Clare Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe has expressed alarm at today’s (Friday) announcement by Aer Lingus that 500 jobs are to go at the airline.

The flag carrier has blamed the global halt in air traffic due to COVID-19 on the move and Deputy Crowe is seriously concerned for workers at Shannon Airport.

In a statement to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Aer Lingus outlined plans for redundancies for these workers, pointing to the fact that they are operating at less than 5% their usual capacity.

“Management at Aer Lingus has been cavalier with Shannon staff,” Deputy Crowe said.

“Unions haven’t been given sufficient time to engage with the workers here and to date, no acknowledgement has been made of the fact that many of the Shannon-based staff rank higher in seniority than their counterparts in Cork and Dublin.

“The process appears not to be ‘last in, first out’, but rather a targeting of Shannon-based staff.

“My sincere thoughts are with all of the workers at Aer Lingus who are hearing this news as we head into the weekend and will no doubt be riddled with worry and fear until Monday morning now.”