Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to blame anyone and it is not about mistakes. This is a key process so there should be checks and balances. A situation should never reach a point where one must apologise. Maybe someone in the chain of command says he or she messed up but somebody else will catch it. To have such a critical error that led to such consequences, financial for the DAA and disruption for everybody else. It is not the person who made the mistake but the box in which it was made. It is the chain of command. It would be helpful if the witnesses explained this matter a bit better and if not then at least come back to us. I ask that because this matter speaks to an overall cultural issue around the processes that are in place.

There is now talk of cordons and that is a good idea so people are held back and move along in stages. To me, that is a fairly obvious option and I do not understand why cordons were not deployed quicker. My query goes back to the process, and ensuring there are checks and balances. The DAA conducts risk profiling, risk analysis and risk planning. For example, when a suspect package is found then people must be moved from the area. Has the DAA thought through its processes? There was nobody to process people but there are other things that cause chaos from time to time at an airport. It does not seem to me that the DAA had something to deploy and that people were trained to cope with various scenarios no different from a fire drill in this building. We know when a fire drill happens here that there are people in each corridor to tell us what to do and we follow their advice. Such advice was not available at the airport.