D-Day for Galway Airport as it faces possible liquidation
Date Published: {J}
BY ENDA CUNNINGHAMAND DARA BRADLEY
Today is ‘D-Day’ for the financially-crippled Galway Airport, as officials meet with the Department of Transport and Bank of Ireland.The airport is facing being put into liquidation in the coming days unless it can agree a rescue package with its bankers.
And just days after the bank ‘raided’ €1.1 million from the airport’s deposit account, airport management are set to be hit by another blow – the Sentinel understands that Aer Arann will not be resuming flights from the facility.
And yesterday evening, eleven of the remaining 12 staff at the airport started a sit-in on the premises.
A spokesman for the workers said: “We have started our sit-in which is supported by our union, SIPTU, and we will continue until we receive our redundancies.”
Staff had been told by airport management that after the bank’s ‘raid’ there was no money in the coffers to pay redundancies.A meeting will take place between airport management and Department officials this morning, and with Bank of Ireland in the afternoon.
Declan Dooley, President of Galway Chamber of Commerce – which is the majority shareholder in the airport – told the Sentinel: “The meeting with the Department will be an information briefing on the latest developments. The meeting with the bank will be very important in that it’s the first face-to-face we will have had since the money was taken from the account last Friday week.
“[Today] is effectively D-Day for the airport company. Liquidation is a very real possibility in the next day or two. The bank has said it will consider any reasonable requests or proposals from the company.“We hope that we can get some sort of commitment from the bank and that they will meet us some of the way,” said Mr Dooley.
A Galway Airport board meeting will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) morning to discuss the outcome of today’s rescue talks. Last week, our sister newspaper the Galway City Tribune reported that the ‘raid’ on the cash deposits belonging to the airport had been referred to the Attorney General’s office to assess the legality of the move.
For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.