Ms Ashley Connelly:

Fórsa represents over 80,000 members, including around 5,000 workers in airlines, airports, air navigation bases, aviation regulatory bodies and air traffic control. Eleven months of pay cuts, lay-offs, redundancies and job insecurity along with continued uncertainty about the future have put aviation workers and their families under significant strain. For many, mortgage and other debt incurred during this period will be a burden for years to come. It is not sustainable for these members to continue to endure this hardship. With no early end to travel restrictions in sight, thousands of jobs will remain at risk unless the State acts now.

While the industry and its staff have benefited from State wage supports, Ireland continues to lack a European-style joined-up Government approach to underpin jobs in the sector, protect aviation infrastructure and ensure the survival of a viable post-pandemic industry. This runs the risk that Irish aviation will be left behind when the rest of the world moves on, with potentially devastating implications for the national economy and employment in the aviation sector, and the sectors and communities that depend on it.

It is highly likely - if not certain - that aviation will be among the last industries to emerge from this crisis yet the Government has been slow to engage fully with stakeholders. Recommendations from the task force for aviation and this committee have been largely ignored. This inaction is placing an entire industry at risk along with the jobs and connectivity it supports.

Fórsa’s written submission to this committee gives a detailed assessment of the impact of the crisis across the industry and contains a range of recommendations both for the sector as a whole and for specific companies. I will draw particular attention to three industry-wide requirements. First, we make recommendations regarding income supports that acknowledge their contribution to the sector and its staff while highlighting the need for a flexible, industry-specific approach for this phase of the aviation crisis. There is a strong risk that the employee wage subsidy scheme, as currently constructed, will lack the flexibility required to underpin employment relationships in the sector, which is essential if we are to position the industry to bounce back post Covid. Fórsa is proposing an aviation income support scheme similar to that in place in Germany, which enables employers to reduce hours rather than laying staff off, with Government income support for the time employees cannot work. Second, we emphasise the need for Government-led social dialogue with employers and unions to underpin a sustainable and thriving aviation industry as we emerge from the pandemic. Third, Fórsa is calling for the Central Bank to adopt European Banking Authority, EBA, guidelines for the extension of mortgage payment breaks in 2021. The European guidelines do not currently apply in Ireland, where the application process is slow and onerous. After 11 months of income reductions and no early sight of recovery, this is placing avoidable strain on our workers.

Ireland went into this crisis as a major force in global aviation and our connectivity to the rest of the world plays a crucial role in supporting economic activity and attracting inward investment. It is, therefore, crucial that we act collectively to ensure that the industry not only survives the impact of this current crisis but is fit to perform robustly as and when safe international travel resumes. Fórsa’s approach has been to work closely with aviation employers to maximise job protection but this approach cannot succeed without significant and continuing Government support and intervention. The union continues to call for any such support to be contingent on the avoidance of compulsory redundancies and the offshoring of Irish aviation jobs.