Dear Editor, the Houses of the Oireachtas Are Rising for One Week's

Dear Editor, The Houses of the Oireachtas are rising for one week’s break. The next column will be sent to you on Thursday, November 9. Regards Tim Ryan Evening Echo Tim Ryan Burke criticises “outrageous” prices from Cork Airport The high cost of flights charged by Aer Lingus out of Cork Airport was raised in the Seanad by Senator Colm Burke. “If I were to book flights for two people to Munich in February, it would cost me €1,000 more to travel from Cork Airport and back than it would cost flying from Dublin,” he said. “This is not a booking next week; it is a booking next February. I then found when I looked to book a flight last week from Cork to London on Wednesday, coming back on Friday, that it would cost me €700 return - over €300 to fly out, over €400 to fly back.” Senator Burke said it was “outrageous” that an airport such as Cork, where Aer Lingus now has increased the prices, is charging such amounts. As a result, people were now deciding to travel to Dublin to get flights out of Dublin rather than travel out of Cork. “It is not helping the flow of traffic through Cork,” he said. “We need to have the Minister in here to see what can be done about unfair pricing levels regarding the airports outside of Dublin. Dublin already has huge numbers of flights, so there is no need for this type of policy. We need to take this up with the Minister and the Minister then needs to take it up with the carriers, particularly Aer Lingus.” Behaviour of banks totally unacceptable - Coveney There is a very clear message coming from the Oireachtas in respect of how unacceptable the behaviour of banks has been in the context of the tracker mortgage scandal, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney told the Dáil. Deputising for the Taoiseach, he said Minister Paschal Donohoe had made it crystal clear that he sees this as a totally unacceptable breach of the kind of standards that banks should be applying. “This is unfortunately a recognition that for some in Irish banks, there is still a cultural problem,” he said. “It needs to change. We have seen both the Central Bank and the Minister for Finance make very clear and blunt statements on the need for banks themselves to respond in a more comprehensive way than has been the case to date. Clearly, different banks are behaving differently in terms of the pace of co-operation with the Central Bank. That is also something that needs to come to an end.” “The Minister has given a very consistent message to all five that the Government regards their behaviour in this scandal as totally unacceptable,” he said. “Banks should be there to serve an economy and a society as opposed to the other way around. There are families today who have lost homes and others who have lost properties because of the dishonest behaviour of banks in the context of tracker mortgages and their attempts to get people off them for some time now.” Government should collect €13bn from Apple By delaying the process of collecting the €13billion plus interest from Apple, the Government has given ammunition to those who seek to target Ireland in regard to corporation tax, Fianna Fáil Deputy Michael McGrath told the Dáil. “At the end of August last year the European Commission issued its state aid ruling in regard to Apple,” he said. “Since then, the money has not been collected. While I fundamentally disagree with the European Commission's state aid ruling, I believe it must be respected. When will this money be collected and lodged to the escrow account as promised? I do not understand why the Minister will not say when he expects the money to be paid over. The money should be collected by Ireland pending the outcome of the appeal. Fianna Fáil supports the Government's appeal but respects the decision that was made and the money should be collected pending the appeal.” In reply, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said the Government has made significant progress on the complex issue of establishing an escrow fund. “Given the scale and bespoke nature of such a fund, the precise terms are subject to confidential and commercially sensitive deliberations and I cannot at this point be drawn into a public commitment on timeframes as this could undermine the State's position, save to say that it will take place as soon as possible,” he said. Irish socialists standing by socialists in Catalonia - Barry Socialists in Ireland will stand in solidarity with socialists in Catalonia who say that Catalonia is a nation and has a right to decide its own future, Cork Solidarity Deputy Mick Barry told the Dáil. He said the working class through the entire Spanish State must show solidarity and mobilise against this repression; that the future of Catalonia must be carved out by the masses who defined police repression to vote on 1 October and who made the general strike on 3 October, not by the Puigdemont government, which has wavered on declaring independence and which have imposed austerity on its own people and that a Catalan socialist republic could abolish evictions, austerity cuts and mass joblessness among the young. It could do that, he said, if it put the wealth of Catalonia at the disposal of its people, starting with the introduction of strong capital controls and then socialising the 1,000 plus companies that have attempted to sabotage the republic by moving their corporate headquarters from Catalonia to elsewhere in the Spanish state. “A Catalan socialist republic would guarantee minorities their full civil rights,” he said. “It would aim in all its actions to unite all working people in Catalan society, namely, those who speak Catalan, those who speak Spanish, those who speak both and others.” .

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