Independent Senator Sean Barrett has warned the Government that it is selling the national airline "for a paltry sum" to a company that provides no service to the US from any Scottish airport or from any British regional location.

Mr Barrett, an economist specialising in transport matters, accused British Airways of conduct that showed “contempt for this House, for this parliament, for an independent country”.

In the hours before the Cabinet was last night made a decision to sell the State’s 25 per cent share in Aer Lingus to Willie Walsh’s AIG group, Mr Barrett said British Airways “has gone to a British quango – the Competition and Markets Authority – to force Ryanair to divest its shares in Aer Lingus so that British Airways can take over”.

In a strongly worded speech he accused the Government of presiding over the sale of the airline without reference to the Oireachtas transport committee.

“We need that national airline. This is an outer offshore island that needs to access transport” and from which Aer Lingus had developed nine transatlantic routes.

“There are none from Scotland, which was a major factor in the rise of the Scottish National Party in recently elections.” That party’s transport spokesman Angus Mac Neill said “British Airways neglects Scotland. It has no routes to North America.”

Track record

Mr Barrett added: “We are trying to develop this country yet we are handing over the national airline to an airline whose track record is not to provide services from Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham or any other region of the UK to North America.”

He pointed to The Irish Times Ipsos/MRBI poll which he said showed two-thirds opposed the privatisation of the State’s share in Aer Lingus.

Fianna Fáil Seanad leader Darragh O’Brien said 15,000 pensioners suffered savage cuts to their pension benefits “which allowed Aer Lingus and the airport to wipe away a €740 million pension deficit in order to fatten the company up for sale”.

Labour Seanad leader Ivana Bacik said she had made her view clear that she did not agree with the sale.