"It's totally unjustified, " said Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary. "They should be using that 265m they got for the Great Southern to pay for it."

O'Leary had been expected to oppose plans for the second terminal, particularly when those plans called for Aer Lingus to be the primary beneficiary of the new facility, while Ryanair and its passengers would be consigned to the existing terminal - while still required to pay extra.

But Ryanair had kept its powder dry in responding until late Friday afternoon. The uncharacteristic silence sparked rumours in some quarters that a deal had been reached between the DAA and Ryanair. Some observers recalled that O'Leary had dressed up as Santa Claus last December while announcing 18 new routes from Dublin and an additonal 250 staff at the airport, suggesting he had come to see value in the second terminal project. So was an imminent deal the cause of a delay? The suggestion brought an explosive chortle in response from the Ryanair boss.

"We've been busy with some other things today, " he said in a telephone interview.

Ryanair is suing the British government over the costs of heightened security measures following an alleged airline bomb plot last month as well as proposals to break up the British airport operator BAA. On Friday, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said he will propose that member states adopt a counter-terror law requiring airlines to give passenger information to authorities, a measure designed to comply with US demands for such data following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington five years ago this month.

"Those clowns in Brussels would have to open a new department to process all the names of 42m Ryanair passengers, " he quipped. However, the new rules would not apply to flights within the EU, thus excluding most Ryanair flights.

He said dealing with these and other issues had only delayed what he promised would be a spectacular response to the DAA's plans, sometime around the middle of this week.

"We were surprised by the timing of the DAA's announcement and we want to consider its proposals in full before making a formal response, " he said. "But I promise you won't want to miss it."

Other observers speculated that with O'Leary's penchant for characters at his press conferences, his response to the DAA's plans for what it calls "T2" might involve an Arnold Schwarzenegger-lookalike cyborg headed for Judgement Day.