O'Leary snookers Bertie
IF YOU have two women in your life, keep them apart.
I should know. Disaster struck me recently. Ever since, I have treated businesswoman and fellow-senator, Mary White, with a grudging respect.
Mary is a formidable female, especially when she is scorned.
Last week when I returned to Leinster House after a holiday with Ruth Buchanan, the first lady in my life, I was greeted by the robust, but likeable, lady of Lir Chocolates fame.
The second lady was brandishing a letter she had written to the media about the follies of Aer Lingus and its boss, Dermot Mannion, in ending the Shannon- Heathrow slots.
Mannion was in her sites.
I felt a sudden surge of pity for Mrs Ann Mannion, Dermot's wife.
Ann may be about to receive the attentions of Senator White.
What an odd suggestion. Well, there is a precedent; about a year ago when lady Mary had made some soft sounds about Gerry Adams in the Seanad chamber, I shot to my feet and expressed the hope that Fianna Fail would not nominate Mary for the Dublin South-East Dail seat.
Five days later she was beaten for the nomination.
The following day I met Mary in the Leinster House Library. She was spitting blood. My presence prompted chocolate to come steaming out of her ears.
I feared she would implode. I shuddered with fear as she filleted me for depriving her of the nomination for the Dail. It was apparently all my fault.
I fled for the exit, but not before she had landed the most cruel blow of all: "And how Ruth Buchanan, that lovely RTE wife of yours, puts up with you no one can imagine, wait until I talk to her."
Eyeing an escape route, I facetiously suggested that she ring the first lady in my life, even volunteering the Playback programme presenter's private number in RTE.
And then I ran.
That evening Ruth Buchanan told me of an irate, female senator who had phoned to sympathise with her on her marital life sentence.
Mary had apparently noted the number, rang Ruth -- whom she had never met -- and denounced me as an unchivalrous cad. Ruth rose to the occasion, demanding equal sympathy for what she herself had been forced to suffer for years.
The two lethal ladies (previously unacquainted) indulged themselves in a good old bitch about a common thorn in their sides. As Albert Reynolds would say "That's women for you".
So this weekend Ann Mannion should leave her telephone off the hook. Mary White is on the warpath. So should Bertie Ahern. Luckily for him, there is no currently identifiable Mrs Ahern.
Senator White may have an unusual political approach to her opponents but she has hit a chord on Aer Lingus. Her outspoken letter on the Shannon issue has struck strong resonances throughout Fianna Fail. And elsewhere.
The Aer Lingus decision to abandon Shannon has turned the Irish political, aviation and business world upside down. Unholy alliances have been formed.
Last week, even the champion of state ownership, left-wing TD Finian McGrath, was spotted boarding a Ryanair flight. Perhaps Michael O'Leary has opened a new route to Finian's beloved Havana?
As if Finian travelling on Ryanair was not bad enough, now the same airline's super capitalist boss, Michael O'Leary, is flirting with the trades unions. He is supporting the bearded brethrens' cause in Shannon against Aer Lingus management. Michael is the biggest shareholder in Aer Lingus. His enemy's enemy is his friend.
O'Leary will force the Government to do handstands at the EGM he has called in the coming weeks. Poor Bertie Ahern will be compelled to vote the State's 25pc stake against the interests of the workers and the demands of the Shannon region.
Fine Gael is lining up with the same unions and Ryanair.
On the other side, Ian Paisley is joining the ranks of those who want Aer Lingus to operate on an all-Ireland basis. The Orangeman is rooting for the shamrock.
Diehard unionist Paisley and republican Ahern are flying the same flag. Fine Gael, the trades unions and O'Leary are batting for the opposing team.
All very confusing. Whatever happened to business principles or political convictions?
They have been jettisoned. Money in the pocket talks loudest. Pride comes second. Political survival is a close third.
Yet in the middle of all the cant and hypocrisy one genius emerges.
Michael O'Leary of Ryanair has snookered the Government, challenged the employees' shareholding group (ESOT), put Denis O'Brien's 3pc shareholding under an unwelcome spotlight and made Aer Lingus management look like monkeys. He has exposed the whole basis of last year's sale of Aer Lingus as a hypocritical piece of political fraud.
The very first attempt by the partly privatised airline to operate as a commercial outfit has landed the nation in a political crisis. The Taoiseach has disappeared. At least one Cabinet minister, Willie O'Dea, is in open rebellion.
Now we know why Aer Lingus was sold for so little; because it was worth so little. It is no normal airline. The Government monkey is still on its back. Willie O'Dea is kicking up. Mary White is in rebellion. And there will be plenty more twists before Michael's EGM is held in early October.
The EGM will expose the privatisation as a monumental flop. A priceless asset was sold for a pittance. The reluctance of scores of global investors to buy shares in the airline was palpable at the time. The reason: their fear that the company might become a political battlefield.
How right they were. War broke out earlier than they expected.
The flotation fiasco allowed the airline's nemesis, Michael O'Leary, to wreak immediate mayhem within its ranks.
Early weakness in the shares offered Michael the opening to hoover up a huge stake. He is now the ringmaster, owning more stock than the Government. He has called the EGM and is challenging Bertie either to back Aer Lingus management and suffer political damage, or to send the airline down the non -commercial road. Bertie has a choice between serious political flak or a share price collapse.
Bertie's mealy-mouthed insistence on holding onto a quarter of the company is a spectacular own goal. He is reaping the whirlwind.
If the Government had sold the entire company today's crisis would have been avoided.
It kept 25pc to appease the comrades, to retain the right to veto nasty commercial developments like a Ryanair takeover, a foreign dawn raid or even an assault on Shannon's status.
Aer Lingus was to remain a comfort zone for the featherbedded semi-state employees. Now Bertie cannot afford to keep his promises.
Today a whole region is up in arms. The rebels smell blood. Ryanair is poised to become a hero of the workers in Shannon.
O'Leary is a genius. All his enemies are now in disarray. And his wife Anita is safe, happily positioned on the same side as the redoubtable senator Mary White.
