The break-up of Aer Rianta moved a step closer yesterday with the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, moving to appoint a team of consultants who will oversee and advise on the whole process.
The Department of Transport has advertised the consultants' contract on the Government's official tenders website.
According to the official notice, the consultants will advise and assist the Minister on a range of issues relating to the break-up.
The notice makes it clear that Dublin, Shannon and Cork will become autonomous authorities but will remain in State ownership.
The notice also makes it clear that legislation governing Irish airports, the Aviation Regulation Act 2001, will have to be revised to take account of the proposed new airports' structure.
It says several issues are likely to arise in that context, including corporate finance issues, accounting and tax issues, and economic regulation.
The Aer Rianta contract will be for eight months, according to the tender notice, and up to 10 parties may be short-listed before the final decision is made.
It is understood the consultants will be asked to deal with the thorny issue of Aer Rianta's bond financing.
The bonds, which are secured on Aer Rianta's assets, are mainly traded in London and the fundamentals underlying them have changed radically as a result of the changes announced by Mr Brennan during the summer. The consultants will also be asked to deal with pension issues.
Mr Brennan is pushing ahead with his plans despite moves by unions in Aer Rianta to ballot for industrial action at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports.
The decision to ballot follows a refusal by the company to provide guarantees about conditions of employment in the event of the break-up.
The ballot by SIPTU, Impact, Mandate and the TEEU, which represent a total of almost 2,000 Aer Rianta workers, is to be completed in the next few weeks.
No date for strike action has been set, however, and is only likely to take place if the break-up of Aer Rianta goes ahead without acceptable guarantees on the security of jobs and conditions.
Workers demonstrated their anger on July 14th by staging general meetings that disrupted services for an hour, causing further knock-on delays.
Union leaders subsequently held a meeting with Mr Brennan and senior officials of his Department, and both sides agreed to a "period of reflection" and further talks.
After that meeting, SIPTU wrote to Aer Rianta asking it to confirm that, in the event of the break-up taking place, workers' conditions of employment would be guaranteed.
The company replied that, as the break-up would require legislative change and it could not be certain of the outcome of this process, it was not in a position to give the guarantees sought.
