Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 November 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Irish Aviation Authority: Chairperson Designate

Photo of Cathal CroweCathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I might get one final question in because time is against us. This relates to Rescue 116. Ms Hynes referenced it in her opening statement here today. It was an awful tragedy and a needless loss of life. I am glad that the Department of Transport, the Irish Aviation Authority and many entities are putting their hands up and saying that there were failures and they need to respond to them.

One of the statutory obligations of the IAA is to have up-to-date databases, terrain mapping and modelling available to those who take to our skies and I am glad that is being tackled. It concerns me that while that voluminous body of work is getting under way, there will be many more rescue missions. There will be many more helicopters taking off from Shannon, Sligo, Dublin and elsewhere, and there will be civil flights taking off as well. It concerns me that there may not be the in-house capacity to get to that point from having a weak database to having a full database of charts, maps and terrain modelling. Will the IAA outsource some of that and when does Ms Hynes believe the IAA will have a fully comprehensive set of database maps, records and charges for all of Irish airspace that people need to fly, particularly on rescue missions?

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