We have built a fabulously wealthy society, at least partly, by openly touting for US stock market-listed multinationals to come here to do business at very low tax rates. Quite rightly, everybody thinks this is a great idea. Yet try and suggest privatising Aer Lingus and you are immediately accused of being a right-wing apologist for asset -stripping sharks waiting in the wings (no pun intended) to ravage the state airline.

The debate on the future of Aer Lingus has unfortunately descended to the emotional 'you're selling the family silver' level.

Many people are understandably sentimental about the Aer Lingus of old, the shamrock on the tail, the little bit of Ireland abroad etc, etc. Unquestionably, the company has done the state great service over the years. But let's not forget, before Ryanair came along, air travel was way out of the price range of the majority of the Irish population. In the early 1980s, it cost a couple of hundred pounds to fly to London . . . huge money in those days. Nobody seemed to worry that this was holding back an island nation. Aer Lingus was a political football for politicians, who stuffed the airline with far more employees than it needed.

Much also has been made about the fact that in the private sector there are no guarantees about the airline's future. But the reality is the prospects for state-owned airlines are even bleaker. Flag carriers have disappeared across Europe. Competition in the aviation business is cutthroat and the fact is, state companies do not prosper in cut-throat sectors.

The point has repeatedly been made by those opposed to the airline's sale that Aer Lingus is enormously profitable.

This, as any casual observer of the aviation sector knows, is a red herring.

In the hugely cyclical airline business, big profits can become huge losses virtually overnight. Aer Lingus was profitable not long before it almost went bankrupt on two separate occasions in the past 12 years.

Labour and others have been consistently arguing that EU rules would in fact allow the government to invest in Aer Lingus. That may or may not be the case . . . it needs to be tested. But, even if it is true, are we really saying that the state should invest hundreds of millions of taxpayers' euro in the hugely volatile aviation sector? There is an old joke that the quickest way of becoming a millionaire is for a billionaire to buy an airline.

We also know from bitter experience that state investment would come at a price. Management would be unable to run the airline in a commercial way, free from political interference. With management forced to consider the political implications of every decision it makes, it would inevitably be only a matter of time before the airline was brought to the brink again.

In these circumstances, there is no way that the government would be allowed invest further capital in the airline.

Whither Aer Lingus then?

The arguments for a flotation are practical, not ideological. It would be economic madness, for example, to privatise the ESB grid or the country's airports.

Unlike Aer Lingus, ESB and the Dublin Airport Authority are dominant players in their sectors and it is highly desirable that such vital infrastructure stays in state hands.

However, the same does not hold for Aer Lingus. Claims that once Aer Lingus goes into private hands that key economic air routes to North America and Europe will be discontinued are quite simply ludicrous. If there is demand there for travel, there will be an airline to service it . . . witness the massive explosion of routes launched by Ryanair from Dublin and Shannon. Let's get real; in recent years, state-owned Aer Lingus has launched routes aimed not at the country's economic needs, but almost exclusively at meeting the demands of Irish holiday makers flying to Europe, and rightly so.

And if politicians are so concerned about our island economy being properly serviced, why have they never addressed the Shannon Stopover, which has sharply restricted the number of US airports with direct flights to Ireland? It beggars belief, given Ireland's strong links with Silicon Valley, that there is still no direct flight between this country and San Francisco.

The near-mythical status given to the Heathrow slots must also be questioned.

The presence of the government's golden share will mean they won't be sold off, but why are they deemed so crucial to Ireland's interests? Thankfully, the days when the only way to access most of the world from Ireland was via Heathrow are coming to an end. With access to capital to expand and an open skies policy, Aer Lingus will be able to offer flights to the US and Asia.

The defeatist attitudes that nobody would want to fly to Ireland, and that Heathrow is the only way of getting people in and out of the country, is symptomatic of an inbuilt, but unjustified, pessimism towards Aer Lingus. We should give the airline and its employees some credit and allow it the freedom to grow and prosper.