Mr. Martin Purcell:

Once we received notification of the difficulties with the PTC in Florida, we immediately dispatched an officer to the facility in Florida and, at the same time, sent a member of staff to Waterford. This was for two main reasons. The primary one was to get hold of the training records associated with the students because once we had them, that enabled us to put together rectification solutions for each student. I will deal with that in more detail in a moment. It also allowed us to have a presence on site to establish fully what was happening. It was also a focal point in Florida for the students and for the other facilities affected by the shutting down of PTC in Florida.

We suspended the flight training organisation, FTO, approval for PTC Florida and PTC Waterford in order that no more students would come into the system. We caught it at the point where we were just dealing with the number of students who were affected at that moment in time. Nine staff within the authority were involved in setting up a dedicated helpline which operated over a three week period during our opening hours and dealt with queries from the students and their parents.

They have also dealt with various representations from some of the Deputies present and also from air pilot representative bodies and other flight training organisations, which have made contact to establish if there is any way they can assist. E-mail contact has continued in many cases between each student and the individual officers who are looking after their cases. The Irish Aviation Authority has liaised with the two main flight training organisations in Ireland, that is, the National Flight Centre, NFC, in Weston and the Atlantic Flight Training Academy in Cork. With their assistance we have been able to put together various packages to assist the students and to enable them to meet the various requirements to attain their licences.

In addition to the work of the Atlantic Flight Training Academy and the NFC, the training in Florida has in many cases continued under the American system. Many students are continuing their licence progress in Florida. Some students have moved to the Atlantic Flight Training Academy in Cork, primarily those based in Waterford at the time the problem arose. They have now taken up and continued training in that area. Of the 34 students in Waterford, a total of 29 are in the Atlantic Flight Training Academy in Cork at the moment. Some 82 students remained in Florida for training at the Florida Institute of Technology, FIT, which drew up a co-operative agreement with one of the flight training organisations here and was able to provide the outstanding elements of training. A total of 22 of the pilots have continued under the American system and have been allowed to continue the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, powered parachute land, PPL, element of it. It is important to note that when a trainee is building for a licence he cannot cherry-pick certain elements; he must complete specific sections. The completion of the FAA PPL section will allow these students to continue additional training in another environment.

We mentioned that the NFC and Atlantic Flight Training Academy were the two main training providers which have assisted us and this collaboration is continuing. NFC has a presence in Florida where it delivers ground training. We continue to provide flight theoretical examinations in this area and we have a team going out this weekend to provide examinations in Florida next weekend. While Pilot Training College, PTC, Florida has ceased operations in Florida we have not ceased and we continue to support the students there in attaining their examinations and progressing to receive their commercial pilot license, CPL. In several cases students who have been affected by this have finished training and have been issued with a CPL since this unfortunate situation occurred.