SEAMUS BRENNAN, the minister for transport, attempted to fire Noel Hanlon, the Aer Rianta chairman, last July but the move was blocked by Charlie McCreevy, the finance minister.

Brennan called Hanlon into his office for a noon meeting on Thursday July 10, 2003. According to government sources, Brennan felt Hanlon was implacably opposed to the minister’s plans for the break-up of Aer Rianta and so should step down.

According to one source Hanlon learned of Brennan’s plans to fire him before the meeting and attempted to contact McCreevy. Hanlon doorstepped McCreevy at Dublin airport as the finance minister was returning from an Ecofin meeting. McCreevy assured Hanlon, a long-time Fianna Fail supporter, that his position was secure.

Sources said McCreevy told Brennan that the chairman had done the state service and should be allowed to serve his time. Before being appointed chairman of Aer Rianta in 1995, Hanlon, a former ambulance manufacturer, served as chairman of Aer Lingus and VHI.

It is the minister for finance who is the shareholder in semi-state companies and it is the minister who must sign the final notice seeking to fire the chairman of any semi-state company.

Meanwhile, one of the first moves of the new Dublin Airport Authority will be to sell the Great Southern Hotel Group and all or part of Aer Rianta International, which is valued at up to €500m, to pay down the company’s €448m debt pile.

According to government sources, Gary McGann, the incoming chairman of Aer Rianta, which will be renamed Dublin Airport Authority, insisted on being given a free rein to sell non-core assets before agreeing to take up the position.

The sell-off strategy is likely to be resisted by unions, who also oppose the restructuring of Aer Rianta in advance of a planned break-up of the company.

The strategy is understood to have the blessing of both Brennan and McCreevy, whose department is keen that each of the three companies expected to emerge from the break-up should be debt free.

McCreevy is the key signatory for the new business plans, which the airport boards will have to come up with before the assets are transferred between the airports and they begin independent operations. It was agreed last week that the earliest date for the transfer is next April.

Aer Rianta International (ARI) was established in 1988 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aer Rianta. It offers both airport retailing and management consultancy expertise to the airport industry.

In what some sources describe as a last hurrah for the departing chairman, Aer Rianta will attempt to bill the Department of Transport for the €8m cost of developing plans to build a new pier for low-fare airlines at Dublin airport.