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Ryanair CEO – “Take cyclists out and shoot them”

Michael O’Leary hits out at Dublin City Council’s drive to get more people cycling

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has never been one to shy away from making controversial remarks – his latest being a suggestion that cyclists should be taken out and shot.

 

The businessman made his comments in a keynote speech at the Creative Minds conference at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin this morning, reports Independent.ie.

 

At the event, organised by the US Embassy, he took aim at the city council’s ambitions to get more people cycling.

"That's all we need in Dublin is more blooming bicycles," he said. "In a country where it rains about 250 days a year, the way forward for Dublin is more bicycles.

“Let's just go back to walking altogether. Soon we'll be living in caves designed by Dublin City Council. Traffic won't work, there's nowhere to park the cars and yet this is a smarter way forward.

“We should take the cyclists out and shoot them."

O’Leary lives in County Westmeath, around 55 miles from Ryanair’s headquarters at Dublin Airport.

"We should create a city that works given that this is a low rise, broadly based city and I speak as one of the commuters who commutes on a daily basis from Mullingar,” he said.

“I can't do it by bicycle ... I want to drive and I expect Dublin City [Council] to come up with a smarter way for me to get around Dublin and be able to park my car somewhere in the middle of Dublin without it being dug up every six weeks so we can have some other faddy non sustainable public transport solution.

"I hate to pick on Dublin City Council, but shit they're here and they deserve a slapping," he added.

In September at the inaugural Cycle Planning Awards, Dublin beat off competition from the London Borough of Southwark, Greater Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leicester and Coventry to be named the local authority with the most cycle-friendly policies for the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan. The citation read:

The project was completed in 2013 and published in April 2014 and set the challenging task of developing a strategic cycle network for the Dublin City, Fingal, South Dublin, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and Wicklow areas, known as the Greater Dublin Area. This plan was aimed at increasing this further and taking cycling to Northern European levels of usage over the coming five to 10 years, ambitious but in the context of over 100 per cent growth over the last five to 10 years achievable.

> Dublin among winners at Cycle Planning Awards

The city ranked 15th in the 2015 Copenhagenize Index of the world's most bicycle-friendly cities, with the urban design company behind the ranking saying that "the city has been inspirational for the rest of the world in its efforts to increase cycling levels."

Last year, Ryanair was widely derided on social media when it trumpeted price reductions in extra charges for carrying sports equipment which for a bicycle actually increased the cost per flight from €50 to €60.

> Ryanair "reduces" bike fee from €50 to €60, flies into cloud of Twitter derision

 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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100 comments

Avatar
burtthebike | 7 years ago
3 likes

I think all ignorant, money-grabbing CEOs who commute 50+ miles should be taken out and shot.

Is O'Leary gaelic for dildo?
 

Avatar
Donnachadh McCarthy | 7 years ago
3 likes

Stop Killing Cyclists have been asked onto Radio 5 Live this morning at 8.35am to give a response to this outrageous statement.
But I agree O'Leary knows how to get millions of pounds of free publicity by making such statements.
However, I guess we should take advantage of it and get millions worth of free publicity for our cause, which benefits everybody, rather than the 15% of society who generally fly.

 

Avatar
fixit | 7 years ago
0 likes

you f**king little migit and your stupid airline..

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spen | 7 years ago
2 likes

Odd that at a conference called Creative Minds his appears to be so closed

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dafyddp | 7 years ago
1 like

He's the Donald Trump or the air. Isn't he also the owner of the horse Victoria Pendleton did so well on?

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Edgeley | 7 years ago
6 likes

Upthread was the phrase "wank puffin".

 

I don't know what it means or where it comes from, but it is a fabulous description of the annoying O'Leary.   Though I prefer titbilled fuckgannet.

Avatar
Mungecrundle | 7 years ago
5 likes

This is basically someone who has elected to live many miles away from the city, who chooses to drive a private car for 100% of their commute to work or for social visits to the city and then has the audacity to demand a greater share of publicly funded transport infrastructure than the people who actually live in the city, pay their council tax to that city and as a consequence of their choices to live there have the more practical options of public transport, cycling or walking. Personally I'd brush the 'cyclists should be shot' comment off as a cognitively disregulated outburst from someone who should know better, but understands the marketing image of being seen as a bit of a bad boy firebrand. At the same time, announce on twitter that you would like to shoot the incompetent airport staff who work for Ryan Air (they are not by the way I'm just illustrating a point) and see how quickly an armed response team turn up on your doorstep and just how lacking a sense of humour the legal system has in prosecuting you as a terrorist.

Avatar
darrylxxx | 7 years ago
3 likes

Someone should put us all out of our misery by taking O'Leary out and shooting him. Tosser.

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lambylamby | 7 years ago
0 likes

dick-cuntosaurus

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1961BikiE | 7 years ago
6 likes

Mungecrundle at least understands the point I was (obviously badly) trying to make. What happens to that guy a few years back who tweeted he had a bomb when he was frustrated at the airport? Rightly he was arrested, I can't remember if any further action was taken. But some millionaire tw@t says a group of folk should be shot & it's "banter" or he's a clever self publicist. I'm sorry in my opinion that does not compute.

One rule for the rich, an infinite number for the rest of us.

Avatar
alansmurphy | 7 years ago
6 likes

"I can't do it by bicycle ... I want to drive and I expect Dublin City [Council] to come up with a smarter way for me to get around Dublin and be able to park my car somewhere in the middle of Dublin"

 

I am sure the children of Africa are dusting down their guitars to hold a charity concert for you.

 

Oxygen thieving cock womble!

Avatar
Mungecrundle | 7 years ago
2 likes

Dildo crested marsh winnit.

 

 

I liked this thread better when people were making up rude names:

Avatar
earth | 7 years ago
2 likes

Deciding between Easy Jet and Ryan Air just became a lot easier.

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davel | 7 years ago
0 likes

O'Leary's a Lesser Spotted Cunty Warbler.

L.Willo: just 'cunt' will do.

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The _Kaner | 7 years ago
1 like

This is a man that 'bought' taxi plates (and him the only 'hire'...ever) so that he could use the bus/taxi lanes to get around the place in front of joe public in their metal boxes...his time is money, why should he have to spend it in traffic amongst the 'serfs'....????CNUTwHOLE

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Comrade | 7 years ago
1 like

I just realised I have never flown on ryanair ... I think I'll keep it that way!

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pga | 7 years ago
1 like

OK to attack cyclists but not certain religious groups,     For some of us cycling is our religion.

When are we all to wake up to the damage caused by motor vehicles.?    We are advised to stay off the bike this weekend due to high air pollution levels.     Nothing about suggesting motorists do not drive.  

 

Avatar
valerieseaman | 7 years ago
1 like

Suggest that the legal response by every cyclist and their family/friends is to never fly Ryan Air.  We have avoided for years due to the crap service.

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Condor flyer | 7 years ago
0 likes

Weary O'Leary.

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rogerseaman1 | 7 years ago
2 likes

Cyclist...Vote with your wallet DO NOT FLY Ryan Air...EVER

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Yogic Cyclist | 7 years ago
1 like

Having a chat with my elderly mother this afternoon, various chit chat. Then she got on to if I was going abroad? I said not with Ryanair, she asked the question, I answered. Then she said, 

"What would happen if you changed the cyclists to Jews, or to any number of ethnic minority's, he obviously isn't update with the latest news. Sounds like an amoeba."

Smart women my mother.

one word is against the law, and the other, well, just try not to run them over.

Avatar
chrisc | 7 years ago
0 likes
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whobiggs | 7 years ago
0 likes

Easyjets Head of Marketing? Maybe that's true, I'm sticking with Easyjet!

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Martin Kent | 7 years ago
1 like

test

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Recumbenteer | 7 years ago
1 like

This kind of selfish, arrogant, attitude is common among high net-worth individuals.  It's almost certainly the attitude where the rules that apply to the rest  of us, don't apply to them, and must surely be related to tax-evasion [*], and much more (e.g. the legal-system). It also explains why these people become rich, because they just do not care about the effect of their behaviour upon others, irrespective of how severe those effects are.

------------------

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior, Piff et al. 2011 [Note this is US english where 'class' means 'wealth'.]

Abstract

Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086.full

* [Irvana Trump: 'only the little people pay taxes'. - Which is code for the rich hide their wealth offshore, from the taxman].

Avatar
Roberj4 | 7 years ago
0 likes

Should take his horse that's just won 'The Grand National' and shot that, they are more of a hazzard to cars and cyclists when there out on the road.

Avatar
bogbrush replied to Edgeley | 7 years ago
8 likes

Edgeley wrote:

Upthread was the phrase "wank puffin".

 

I don't know what it means or where it comes from, but it is a fabulous description of the annoying O'Leary.   Though I prefer titbilled fuckgannet.

Logged in just to like this. Although name calling achieves nothing, the quality on this thread is approaching Shakesperean. 

Also, does roadcc have an avian insult generator feature that I'm unaware of?

Avatar
L.Willo replied to Mungecrundle | 7 years ago
2 likes
Mungecrundle wrote:

Dildo crested marsh winnit.

 

 

I liked this thread better when people were making up rude names:

Ah. Sorry.
Just for you:

Michael O'Leary is an ugly beaked fuck buzzard.

Avatar
David9694 | 7 years ago
2 likes

Appalling comment, on so many levels:

- wouldn't it be nice if this turned out to be his Ratner moment* (his employees all suitably safeguarded, of course); colourful entrepreneur makes tongue-in-cheek comment" doesn't wash for me.
- To avoid getting shot, let's all jump in our cars**, those that can, and solve Dublin's traffic problems that way;
- btw, strange that the car advert I saw never mentioned all these traffic queues, pot- holes, MSCPs, etc : it was all clear, sweeping ocean drives and luminous city centres: who can I blame for this?
-  Most worryingly, he's not the first person I've heard, in an era where bar-room talk is increasingly translating into official policy, to harbour this kind of underlying hostility to others 

 

*younger readers may want to look this reference up on the inter-web

** for which as "hard-pressed motorists", we have paid our road tax, etc which means everyone else needs to get out our way, especially those pavement-riding, traffic light jumping, mobile phone using, road hog cyclists***

***yes, I mean you - I was held up by nearly by 30 seconds by a group of you on a Sunday morning, on a country lane - this happened once in 2012 and again last year

 

Avatar
L.Willo | 7 years ago
1 like

I think anyone who uses Copenhagen as a verb should be shot. Where do I turn myself in for "incitement to murder"? 

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