As EI-AAA says, what o'dreary says is irrelevant. As long as the EU keeps saying no and they will as the competition position has not changed. If anything, the AL/FR duopoly is stronger now than it was 2 years ago. Anyway, AL are holding services steady, while ryanair are agrressively reducing capacity ex-ROI. Which hardly makes ruinair a likely candidate to expand AL.
As ever, the mullingar farmer wants to be talked about, which will happen for a few minutes with this latest pronouncement, until the public get bored (which happens a lot quicker nowadays) and he has to think of the next bull$hit attention getting statement.