Micheál Martin ‘spends more time abroad than Elton John’, says Michael O’Leary

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, Press Association

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been accused of spending “more time abroad than Elton John” by Michael O’Leary, who called on him to tackle the passenger cap at Dublin Airport, infrastructure and housing.

The Ryanair chief executive said that despite the fact that the Government has committed to abolishing the cap, it remains in place 13 months into the Government’s tenure.

A 32 million passenger cap, a planning condition issued by the airport’s local authority, has come under legal and political scrutiny.

Concerns have been raised about whether it will hamper the Irish economy and connectivity, while others say it should not be lifted as Ireland attempts to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

“Micheál Martin has, 13 months later, still failed to scrap the Dublin Airport cap, which he promised to do as soon as possible,” Mr O’Leary said at a press conference in Dublin.

“We believe it’s because he’s too busy on his worldwide tour, he spends more time abroad than Elton John does.”

He accused the Taoiseach of “eating Ferrero Rocher and doing bugger all at home” on the cap, on housing or on infrastructure.

In a presentation shown to reporters, Mr O’Leary listed “a brief snapshot of the last four months in our glorious leader’s life”.

He said Mr Martin attended the Cop30 conference in Brazil, the G20 summit in South Africa and a jobs summit in Angola in November, took a trip to China in January and claimed the Taoiseach was “dossing” in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

“It’s not like they’ve been busy passing other legislation last year,” Mr O’Leary said.

“This Government does very little, but it’s led by somebody who spends far too much time being wheeled around abroad, meeting global leaders – which would be fine, as long as you were having a Cabinet meeting here at 8:30 on a Monday morning and getting stuff done, he wanders in it about 11 o’clock on Tuesday and then disappears to Davos for a couple of days.”

Asked if he believed he was getting a taste of his own medicine through insults from tech billionaire Elon Musk after previous attacks he made against former Green Party ministers Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin, Mr O’Leary said: “I’m well able to take my own medicine.”