Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It does not actually. Yesterday, there was a plenary session in Strasbourg involving dozens of very irate MEPs from all over Europe. The whole discussion was about Ryanair and how badly the transition has been managed. Mr. Courtney might say that is Ryanair's problem but it is the Irish Aviation Authority that oversees this, so that does not add up. Neither does it add up to say that over 28 days a pilot can only work for 100 hours because there is nothing stopping Ryanair from scheduling its pilots to work 100 hours every month from April to September, the busiest period, so that pilots work the bulk of their 900 hours in that six month period. They could work 600 hours in that period. There would then be another six months in which they would have to work the other 300 hours, bringing them to the maximum number of hours in a year. What Mr. Courtney is saying does not add up in terms of proving that there is not a problem. I asked Mr. Courtney if he was aware of the London School of Economics study of 7,000 European pilots which specifically looked at pilot fatigue, which should be of concern to him. Pilot fatigue is certainly a matter of concern to me. I am going to a climate change conference in Bonn in a few weeks' time and will be panicking about pilot fatigue, having studied all of this stuff. The Irish Aviation Authority should also be panicking because it is the body overseeing this area. There is a connection between the contracts that pilots work under and the state of their health when they are flying aeroplanes.