Vol. 548 No. 2
38 Mr. Higgins (Mayo) asked the Minister for Public Enterprise the details of her meeting with the chairman of Aer Rianta regarding the special arrangements requested by a member of the board of Aer Rianta for the arrival of a person (details supplied) at Dublin Airport on return from the United States; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4469/02]
Accompanied by the Secretary General of the Department, I met the chairman of Aer Rianta on 16 January 2002. We discussed the chairman's written response by letter of 11 January 2002 to my request for full particulars of the circumstances surrounding transit of the person referred to through Dublin Airport on his return from the US after Christmas on 29 December 2001.
The essential factors, as reported by the chairman and discussed between us, were that Mr. Dermot O'Leary, a member of the board of Aer Rianta, on foot of a request on 28 December from the family of the person referred to asked the duty manager at Dublin Airport if anything could be done on compassionate grounds to facilitate the person's smooth arrival as his wife was very upset at the prospect of the return to Dublin.
The duty manager undertook to facilitate the request in so far as he could and, on leaving his duty, said he would advise the incoming duty manager of the position. The duty manager then contacted the airport director, Mr. Dermot O'Leary, to advise that the family could be facilitated strictly on the basis that the person in question presented himself to immigration and customs in the normal way.
The person referred to arrived on 29 December and cleared immigration in the ordinary way. The duty sergeant then spoke to the customs officer on duty who consented to the family not walking through customs in the ordinary way. They collected their baggage from the conveyor belt in the ordinary way and then, accompanied by the duty sergeant, exited the baggage hall through the nearby staff entrance and not through the normal public entrance. They then walked directly across the public arrivals area and onto the public street to their car.
This facility, not available in the normal course of events, was afforded on compassionate grounds for the wife of the person referred to. It appears that nothing illegal was done in this procedure.
As the Deputy will be aware, I subsequently received on 16 January 2002 an unreserved apology from Dermot O'Leary in relation to his involvement in this matter and I accepted his apology. I subsequently briefed the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Finance.
The matter of the appropriate protocol to be adopted in future in relation to the transit of high profile people through Dublin Airport is under active consideration by Aer Rianta.
(Mayo): Does the Minister believe that what Mr. O'Leary did was wrong, that it was wrong to make special arrangements to secrete Mr. Lawlor through Dublin Airport and to avoid the normal arrival procedures and that it was particularly wrong, given that Mr. Lawlor was returning to Ireland from the United States to face a jail sentence for flouting the orders of the Flood tribunal and playing ducks and drakes with the courts, that he was accorded VIP treatment when he should at least have been given the normal treatment given to any arriving passenger?
I consider it incorrect, rather than the word used by the Deputy. It was not illegal. Mr. O'Leary made it clear in the conversation he had with the chairman, which the chairman relayed to me, that it was done for the wife of Deputy Lawlor; that is the reason he agreed to it. The letter from the chairman to me setting out the details of how it happened and what Mr. O'Leary said and did was made public by me the next day in the newspapers. What happened happened. I received an apology, I accepted it and I informed the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance.
(Mayo): Obviously what happened was not illegal in the strict sense of the word, but what he did was, in the Minister's words, incorrect. If it was incorrect and inappropriate for a member of the board of Aer Rianta to abuse his position in that way and to make special arrangements for Deputy Lawlor, why did the Minister not remove him from the board? Is it not a fact that the reason Mr. O'Leary was not removed from the board is that he is a powerful figure in the Minister's party? He is a member of the party, a fundraiser and a member of its national executive.
A ceist from the Deputy.
(Mayo): It is a ceist and it is an appropriate and pertinent one. Is that not the reason, that Mr. O'Leary is a powerful figure in the Fianna Fáil Party?
I am not aware of what powerful position he holds. He apologised and I undertook to accept his apology for the matter. He apologised unreservedly—
(Mayo): That is a U-turn. The Minister said previously that what he did was not wrong.
The Deputy asked me a question and I am replying to it. I said he furnished me with an apology and I accepted it, as did the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Finance. There the matter rests.
