Airport board up in the air

THE Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey has done a partial climb down in his nominations for the new Shannon Airport Authority but has not as yet gone back on the decision to reduce worker-director representation, which has held up the formation of the new board since mid-September.

In disclosures through a Dáil Question from Clare Fine Gael Deputy Pat Breen, the minister has confirmed seven appointments to the Shannon Airport Authority (SAA), which includes a chairman, instead of the five places on the board, which he ordered ahead of the deadline for the installation of the new authority.
On the inaugural authority, there were seven non-executive ministerial appointees but it has now transpired that Minister Dempsey has named six to sit on the new board.
However, the situation is unclear about trade union representation. In his cost-cutting order, the minister stated that worker representation on the Shannon board was to be reduced from four to two, prompting the revolt by SIPTU and other unions, which continues to rumble on.
In his response to the question from Deputy Breen, the minister indicated that there are “two vacancies” on the Shannon authority board, which would suggest that while the minister has had a change of heart about the number of his own nominees, he is sticking with his proposed cull of worker-directors.
The unions are sure to latch on to Minister Dempsey’s position regarding his own nominees and insist that it’s hands off as regards their four seats on the board. SIPTU held three seats, with a non-voting Dublin observer, on the inaugural SAA, while IMPACT held one seat.
In the personnel appointed to the new board, a vastly expanded say on the airport authority has been granted to the Mid-West tourism industry and the hotel sector in particular. This comes on the back of an intensive behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign by the Irish Hotels Federation in the region, spearheaded by Lahinch hotelier, Michael Vaughan.
Revealed this week as the new chairman of the authority is Brian O’Connell, developer of the Westpark joint venture at Shannon Free Zone.
Also coming onto the board are Dromoland Castle managing director, Mark Nolan; former Irish Hotels Federation president, Mary Fitzgerald of the Woodlands Hotel in Adare, also a former member of the Shannon Airport Marketing Liaison Committee.
The relationship between Shannon Development and the airport authority, which was formalised earlier this year in a new marketing joint programme, has been cemented with the appointment of Shannon Development chief executive, Dr Vincent Cunnane to the authority. He is also the chief executive of the Mid-West Task Force and will be taking a seat beside Olivia Loughnane, manager of the task force, who served on the inaugural airport authority and was one of two appointees to the new board already announced already by the minister. The other is Ray Gray, finance director at the Dublin Airport Authority, which is being given seats on the Shannon and Cork Airport boards with reciprocal representation on the DAA for the chairmen of the two provincial airports. The other person is Patrick Blaney, who also served on the previous board.
The nomination of six directors instead of five by Minister Dempsey now opens the way for the trade unions to step up their campaign to retain their four seats on the authority.
When the minister ordered worker-director seats to be reduced to two, SIPTU led the charge and called what they saw as the minister’s bluff when challenging the €2 million figure being touted as the cost of running the airport boards and offering the alternative of abolishing both the Shannon and Cork boards. The dispute on worker director representation went all the way to the ICTU and onto the agenda of the national understanding talks, which collapsed last week. Up to this Wednesday, Shannon unions had not been notified of what their representation is to be or that arrangements should be set in place to arrange the elections, which take place at each airport to elect worker directors.
The worker-directors on the Shannon Authority, which went out of office in mid-September, were Linda Keane, Audrey Costelloe and John McCarthy of SIPTU and Joe Buckley representing IMPACT.