Dilger appointed chairman of airport authority board

FORMER GREENCORE chief executive David Dilger has been appointed chairman of the board of Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey.

Mr Dilger’s appointment follows the resignation of Gary McGann earlier this year

Mr McGann stepped down from the State-owned DAA after his resignation from the board of Anglo Irish Bank, when it emerged the bank had for years concealed huge directors’ loans to former chairman Seán FitzPatrick.

Mr Dilger (52) retired as chief executive of Greencore in April last year after more than 12 years in the role.

His pension arrangements came in for criticism from Greencore shareholders at its agm in February after it emerged that he had received a €13.5 million lump sum pension last year.

He is a non-executive director with Bank of Ireland and his term there expires on July 3rd. Mr Dilger was previously chief executive of Food Industries from 1988 and group finance director of Woodchester, now GE Capital.

He has also served as an Ibec board member and is a chartered accountant.

The role of DAA chairman attracts a salary of around €31,500 per annum and the appointment is for five-years.

In a statement Mr Dempsey said Mr Dilger’s record was “highly regarded. I am pleased that he has accepted this exciting appointment at a very challenging time in the aviation industry.”

Mr Dilger joins the authority as it seeks to secure 400 voluntary redundancies from its workforce of 3,700 in a bid to secure annual cost savings of €55 million a year.

Revenues at the DAA are expected to drop this year because of an estimated 11 per cent fall in passenger numbers at the three airports it operates; Dublin, Cork and Shannon.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary criticised the decision to replace Mr McGann with another bank director.

“The fact that Mr Dilger was a participant in the near bankrupting of Bank of Ireland necessitating its bailout by the Government makes him one of the golden circle of ‘banksters’ who should be unfit to be chairman of a semi-State company, even one as badly run as the DAA airport monopoly,” said Mr O’Leary.

A spokesman for the Department of Transport declined to comment on whether anyone other than Mr Dilger had been approached about the role of chairman.