Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary, took aim at Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan amid controversy over persistent delays at Dublin Airport due to illegal drone activity.
The fiery rant was broadcast live on RTE Radio 1’s Morning Ireland programme today and featured the Irish businessman referring to the minister as "incompetent" before asking him to either take immediate action "or resign."
He told RTE’s Aine Lawlor, "It is time for Minister Ryan to take action, or resign. Frankly, we think he is incompetent. He has sat on his hands for the last five or six weeks doing nothing. He has meetings and is producing memos which is not a solution to this problem."
READ MORE: Flights halted at Dublin Airport after yet another drone sighting near runway
Dublin Airport was hit with another bout of disruption on Thursday evening after a drone was spotted within its protected commercial airspace - marking the sixth incident of its kind in recent weeks.
Frustrated passengers, airlines and the daa are now looking for new legislation to be passed to end the illegal activity.
Three flights were diverted after Dublin Airport suspended operations for half an hour and 20,000 passengers were affected by the delays as flights were prevented from landing or departing between 6:27 pm and 6:59 pm.
O’Leary now suggests that if legislation will be a lengthy process, then the government should purchase the appropriate equipment to "block and take down" these drones, and train airport police to use the technology.
"I’d say the drone operators at Dublin Airport are terrified at the thought of Eamon Ryan producing a memo - that’s clearly going to clear the skies over Dublin," he said sarcastically.
"This is completely unacceptable, Dublin Airport is the only major EU airport that over six times in the last six weeks has been shut by illegal drone activity.
"Every time for the last six weeks it's been shut, Minister Ryan is holding meetings, he’s promising action, he’s meeting stakeholders, which of course is political speak for doing nothing."
Speaking in terms of a potential solution, O’Leary went on to say: "This is relatively easy, we don’t want 15-year jail sentences, we want the Dublin Airport to have the power to disable drones.
"Most European airports - Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted, Schiphol - all have anti-drone technology. It’s not expensive, it costs about €100,000 and it is operated by the airport police."
Taking aim at Minister Ryan, the airline boss then added: "The problem is, we have a minister who won’t take any action, he’d prefer to have meetings and produce memos and talk about it and there is this grey area over whether it should be gardai or should it be airport police.
"The gardai are busy enough and they don’t need any more commitments, what we need today is not legislation, we need our minister to authorise Dublin Airport to spend the €100,000, buy the electronic equipment which will disable these drones once they’re identified and bring them down."
He then went on to say that waiting until next Tuesday is simply not good enough, with fears over more disruption across the weekend.
He said: "We need that done today. We don’t need a memo to cabinet next Tuesday, what happens if the airport is shut again on Saturday or Sunday."
The disruption caused last night saw three planes diverted to Shannon and Belfast - "500 passengers were taken to an airport they didn’t want to go to and 20,000 passengers had their flights delayed and disrupted at Dublin Airport last night," O’Leary pointed out.
"It is time for Minister Ryan to take action, or resign. Frankly, we think he is incompetent. He has sat on his hands for the last five or six weeks doing nothing, and he have meetings and producing memos is not a solution to this problem."
Towards the end of his rant, O’Leary requested that Minister Ryan have a plan in place by lunchtime today whereby the safeguarding of Dublin’s Airport operations is underway immediately.
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