I can picture it now "RE announced today the loss of 100 Irish jobs (wild guess!!) due to their failure to win PSO subsidies given to regional airlines that operate regional routes on behalf of the goverment. This has forced them to withdraw service on x amounts of routes. An RE spokesman said that the awarding of the PSO to BRITISH airways/ Air FRANCE/Fly BRITISH European etc has meant we have had to make 100 Irish people redundant"
Any 'Air FRANCE' services would be operated by CityJet - an IRISH airline, thus creating/keeping Irish jobs. We live in age of a deregulated European air market so BA, FlyBE or whoever have just as much right to the Irish PSOs as an Irish airline. Look at what Ryanair has done around Europe.