Mr. Kevin Humphreys:

Mr. Brennan and I had a meeting with the principal of PTC. He came to see us. We asked him straight out. We asked what his situation was and would he still be able to provide this training. He replied that he was having difficulties with Florida Institute of Technology and he would be fine until the middle of 2013, when he would need more students to come in to keep his business going. We took him at his word.

At Mr. Brennan's direction, I went down to the Florida Institute of Technology and met the principals, the head of flight training and the chancellor of the university. This is a huge university. It is the old University of Melbourne in Florida. It has magnificent facilities. Its flight training school goes right out onto the international airport at Florida. It has everything one could want in a structured flying school by way of accommodation, facilities and lecture halls. I visited the hangar and saw the aeroplanes, which were in mint condition. One could not ask for anything better.

When I met the two principals of the university who are university professors, they stated it was confidential information and they were not at liberty to tell me the financial position, but they were having trading difficulties. That was early June and shortly afterwards the relationship broke down. What happened was Florida Institute of Technology stated that Waterford could not continue to pay it and it owed the institute so much money that they were ceasing trading.

Immediately, there was a bit of a panic because the students thought that, due to their visas, they would be thrown out of America and that they would be put out of their accommodation, but, in fact, the Florida Institute of Technology accommodated everyone for up to three months at the institute's expense.

An important point I would make is that I went down there to do what I could to salvage the reputation of Irish aviation. As far as the possibility of trying to do this again with anyone is concerned, our reputation is seriously damaged. We, as the regulator, had to point out that we are a safety regulator. We are interested in the quality of the aeroplanes, the instruction, the instructors and the standard of training being provided.

I have had the misfortune to visit Florida to collect the bodies of Aer Lingus cadets who were killed in an accident there. I have had the misfortune to visit the accident site where trainee cadets and pilots were killed in our own flying schools in Cork. Thanks be to God we have not had that experience with this. Although it is little comfort to families who have lost money, our responsibility is for the safety, and that is what we believe we have delivered. The matter of the financial irregularities is for another organisation.

If we ever have difficulties with a flying school, the proprietor states that we are closing down the business on dubious safety grounds which leaves him or her in the position of having to tell all the cadets that he or she cannot continue. That is the dilemma for us. Where we in good faith believed that the quality of the training was up to scratch, that was the limit of our remit and that is the way we acted.

I fully acknowledge that the lessons from ECA in Cork were not learnt. Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, then Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications, appointed me to chair a task force on that, but all the recommendations were not taken on because the main players are the airlines and the educational institutions, not the regulatory body.