THE DEPARTMENT of Transport has rejected a claim made yesterday by Ryanair that Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey did not have the right to decline the airline’s offer to act as its proxy in relation to voting on motions at Aer Lingus’s agm tomorrow.

In an open letter to the Minister, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “It is up to you whether you vote Ryanair’s shares in favour of the resolutions or in favour of Aer Lingus’s recommendation to protect these bloated . . . fees but you cannot ‘decline our offer’, since we have already executed the proxy in your favour.”

In a statement to The Irish Times, the department said: "A proxy is a relationship of agency, which requires agreement of the principal and the agent. As Minister Dempsey has declined the Ryanair offer, agreement was not reached and the proxy cannot be executed."

Ryanair has tabled two motions for Aer Lingus’s agm calling for directors’ pay to be slashed and for shareholders to be given the right to vote on any compensation packages that might be offered to executives in the event of a change of ownership at the airline.

Ryanair owns 29.8 per cent of Aer Lingus and its shares would have given the Minister a combined 54.9 per cent holding for voting purposes.

Ryanair said yesterday that it carried 5.51 million passengers in May, a rise of 9 per cent on the same month of 2008. Its average load factor for the month was 81 per cent, up one percentage point year on year.