Daniel McConnell: Virulent strain of Fine Gael-itis grounds aviation sector

As we know the primary symptoms include bouts of arrogance and high-handedness with the occasional episode of an inflated sense of one’s own importance.

Treatment for such symptoms can include losing an election, finding oneself subject to a criminal investigation, or a nice sinecure in the private sector on inflated salaries.

This latest bout of Fine Gael-itis affected junior Foreign Affairs Minister Colm Brophy during a TV appearance on Virgin Media’s Tonight Show with Claire Brock.

A normally amiable fellow, Brophy has been a repeated sufferer of Fine Gael-itis since entering the Dáil in 2016 and is not a man known for lacking in self-confidence.

During his interview, Brophy was being pressed about Government plans to restore international travel and getting the Irish aviation sector back on track.

When asked when can people — who have been subjected to the longest and most severe lockdown in western Europe — can book their foreign holidays, Brophy told the public to get over themselves.

“Forget your own holiday for a second, think of the greater community, think of the greater good, think of the people's businesses which have been closed for so long. We need you to stay in this country and have a staycation,” he blasted.

“You may later this year or next year be able to enjoy that overseas holiday, that’s fine, but please, please do your staycation,” Mr Brophy said.

Now, what he said went way beyond official government policy and, in an instant, sought to consign the 140,000 people connected to our aviation sector to several more months of penury and misery.

It was a frankly disgraceful contribution for a minister who is responsible for managing our position on a global stage.

The clip of what he said has been circulating on social media for the past few days and to say he got a visceral response would be an understatement.

By calling on us to think of the greater community, Brophy sought to lecture us, in a way only junior ministers who have no input into real decision making can.

He asked us all to think of the businesses that have been closed for so long.

It was not the public that closed those businesses, it was his government’s policy.

He says the country needs us to stay here and have a staycation.

That is patent nonsense.

Anyone who has sought to book anywhere for July and August will realise there is nothing left.

To illustrate the point, in the first two weeks of August, most counties in Ireland have fewer than a dozen options in total on offer, on leading websites, with some offering no viable solutions for my family of five. 

The desire to want to fly is not a selfish endeavour.

For many, booking their package holiday to Spain is cheaper than the option of holidaying at home, where we seem to have no problem in charging a premium.

But if Brophy wants to talk of the community, what about the 143,000-strong community of our pilots, cabin crew, ground staff, and administration staff who have been devastated by — at times — highly questionable and arbitrary public health advice and government decision making.

At times, the public health mindset has been openly hostile to the needs of our aviation brothers and sisters.

Staff pilots in the airlines, many of whom — if not all — have huge loans related to their training, have seen their salaries slashed by 70%.

Contract pilots and other non-staff personnel have all been let go with reports of some contract pilots now acting as Deliveroo and Just Eat drivers in order to make money.

Now before you start, I have accepted that limiting foreign travel was appropriate at the beginning of the pandemic but curtailing airline traffic out of this island to just 4% of normal levels is completely unjustifiable and unacceptable.

This week’s dignified protests outside Leinster House and the Convention Centre by the Recover Irish Aviation movement, which saw hundreds of pilots in their full uniform taking to the streets, was a stark illustration of how damaging our public policy has been.

These are people who probably never thought they would have to protest like this, but have been left with no option but to.

Friday night's announcement from Government about committing to the EU digital green cert is welcome but the admission by Leo Varadkar that a restoration of the Common Travel Area (CTA) with the UK is not yet possible because of Nphet (National Public Health Emergency Team) advice was deeply depressing.

On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Varadkar said Ireland is "not in a position" to restore the Common Travel Area just yet because the advice from Nphet is that there are "real concerns" about the prevalence of the Indian variant in Britain.

More alarmingly, Varadkar added that these restrictions could continue when travel has resumed within the EU this summer.

He said the lifting of restrictions will see a "phased return" to international travel but warned that it will not be like it was before the pandemic.

He said it is great there will be a return to travel abroad soon, but the Government is going to do it as safely as possible.

This was some shift in position from the Tánaiste who only two weeks ago went out on a bit of a solo run talking up the need to get the CTA back first, ahead of wider EU travel.

This week’s Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meetings heard loud criticisms of Nphet and the dominance of public health advice over government decision-making.

Paul McAuliffe, the Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin North West, took some heat for suggesting it was time to decommission Nphet, while the party’s heir apparent Jim O’Callaghan demanded the country “be handed back to the people”.

Even senior Fine Gaelers like former ministers, Charlie Flanagan and Richard Bruton, have raised concerns about the clarity of government decision-making in respect of restrictions.

Certainly, it has been laughable to see many Opposition TDs who demanded hotel quarantine for all in January sing a very different tune this week when the public desire for freedom is palpable.

The vaccine rollout, after a difficult and sluggish start, has certainly turned into a welcome success story and underpinning that goodwill is that desire for our personal liberties to be restored.

That is why it was so disappointing and alarming to see the government seek to extend Covid-19 emergency powers until November and potentially to next February.

The cynic in me says this has less to do with public health and more to do with the desire to expand the nanny state.

When all of this does eventually come to an end, and reviews are conducted and lessons are learned, it is clear that the treatment of Ireland’s aviation sector will go down as perhaps the greatest failure of our response to Covid-19.

It simply did not need to be this way.