Mr. Evan Cullen:

If I overlook any questions, it is due to the volume of questions that have been asked. Members should feel free to refer me to any unanswered questions.

In response to Deputy O'Dea, Ireland facilitates these self-employment arrangements to a greater extent than does any other state in western Europe. It has reached the point that airlines from across Europe set up subsidiaries in Ireland in order to use Irish employment law to create what the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport refers to innovative employment models and which it supports. In some airlines, less than 5% of pilots are engaged in this manner, whereas in others it is 100%. Certain airlines employing pilots across Europe do not fly into or out of Ireland, but are Irish airlines subject to regulation under Irish company law and safety criteria. These airlines are not household names in Ireland.

On how much Ministers and so on know, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, are former Ministers for Transport, Tourism and Sport. The Taoiseach was also formerly Minister for Social Protection. We have engaged with each of those Departments over many years and pointed out this situation to them. I was dismayed to read the transcript of the committee's engagement with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the response of the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, to questions on bogus self-employment in the Dáil on 4 April.

We have not engaged with the current Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection but have engaged with previous Ministers and we have had much engagement with officials from that Department. I am incredibly dismayed by the statements they have made to this committee and the information they are giving to their Minister. They were well briefed on all this for many years. What they said was just extraordinary given what they were told.

On the obligations on these companies to hold AGMs, we know of one lady, who is a solicitor in north County Dublin, who is the company secretary for over 200 of these companies and that UK Revenue has been pursuing her for copies of the minutes of the AGMs of these 200 odd companies. I note the Revenue Commissioners here do not care about what these companies are doing. We estimate there are up to 800 of these companies, containing three to eight pilot directors. As I said, in some of these companies, 100% of the pilots are in this kind of precarious employment. The State is willing participant this practice. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has used the phrase "innovative employment models".

On the safety issue, the agencies that are used to direct the work towards these pilots are not covered by the Irish Aviation Authority. The airline is registered and is in the jurisdiction of an aviation authority and the pilots, as licenceholders, are in the jurisdiction of an aviation authority but the agency, however, is outside any of the laws with regard to aviation regulation. The airline would justifiably say it is not intimidating its pilots by threatening to cut their work if they do not toe the line on a safety issue as against a commercial issue. The agency, which is not in the jurisdiction of the Irish Aviation Authority, is free to do what it likes, including disciplining pilots, cutting their hours and so on.

I briefed the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport on the use of personalised fuel league tables. This is where an airline would rate its pilots against one another on their fuel burn. It is important to understand that the more fuel one carries, the more fuel one burns. If an aircraft was to fly from Dublin to New York and was supposed to carry 40 tonnes for that trip, if there were thunderstorms in New York, a pilot might add five tonnes. He or she will burn one of the five tonnes carrying the other four tonnes. Fuel is 40% of the operating cost of an airline. Pilots, in law, determine how much fuel goes on board. The airlines always look at the fuel burns of pilots. Some airlines have these personalised fuel league tables, where the pilots are rated against one another. The pilots at the top would be in the green zone and they get a letter every month saying they are good boys and are in the green zone. However, the pilots in the bottom 20% are in the red zone on the website and they get a letter saying they need to review their fuel management policy. I have explained to the Minister in great detail that if one is in precarious employment and on a zero-hour contract and one's hours of work, which are directly related to one's income, are determined by one's employer, and one is in the red zone, what is the motivation for picking fuel up when one needs it?

Another example of this is that when one is on an approach to a runway in a storm, one should really throw away the approach - we call it doing a missed approach - because one becomes destabilised by severe gusts of wind. In such circumstances, one will burn a great amount of fuel. A standard A320 or 737 will burn two and a half tonnes of extra fuel just to perform that manoeuvre to come around and try again. If one is on a fuel league table and a precarious contract, in the back of one's head one is thinking whether one will press ahead with this landing in these conditions, or will one burn the two and a half tonnes and put oneself at the bottom of the fuel league table.

Another example of where a safety decision comes up against the commercial one is in respect of EU 261, which is the compensation to passengers. If I am a contractor and I find a defect on the aircraft and I want it fixed, the passengers will be delayed and will require compensation for lunch and possibly an overnight stay in a hotel. All this is commercial pressure against the safety decision. A contractor must make this decision. He or she will get a phone call, and not a text or an email, asking why he or she is delaying the flight and whether he or she realises he or she is wiping out the entire profit for this flight, or for the day in this base, if he or she does not cop on and fly this airplane. That is how it impacts safety.

Every EU-funded and commissioned study - the Ghent, the London School of Economics and the Ricardo studies - all said that pilots in these contracts are less likely to report safety concerns.

The whole process of Scope is a joke. It is nothing more than some kind of figleaf to satisfy social partners, or whatever. It is designed to frustrate and to delay and it is a war of attrition on ordinary people, trying to establish and vindicate their rights. Nobody in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection seems to be interested in amending Scope or taking it seriously. Our experience of Scope is extremely negative.

On the back of the German investigations, more than 100 pilots were arrested and charged with criminal prosecution for being in contracts like these Irish ones. Vereinigung Cockpit, which is our brother airline pilot association in Germany, did a deal with German Revenue where each of these pilots turned state's evidence against these companies. There was some kind of a settlement because it has all gone away now but the Germans did not let go of it and they are very pleased with the outcome.

Young pilots are led to believe they joining the airline and that they will participate in it but at the last minute, they are directed into a room where they sign up with the agency and end up being placed into these companies. They can find out who their fellow directors are through the Companies Registration Office and they have done that. That is how we have made contact with other directors. I asked numerous contract pilots to attend here and I asked one to give evidence but, understandably, none has. They said I must be joking and that they would not attend.