Mr. Declan Fitzpatrick:

The IAA is subject to ongoing auditing by the International Civil Aviation Organization under what it refers to as its universal safety oversight audit programme. At EU level, there is the EASA standardisation process, which is laid out in European regulation. I think we had four on-site audits last year by the EASA. It is an intensive process. It will come each time to look at specific areas. The audits focus on our airworthiness, our flight operations, aerodromes, etc. It also has what it refers to as its systemic audit, which looks holistically at the whole organisation and how we do our function.

We score well in the ICAO's universal safety oversight audit programme, USOAP. It is a continuous monitoring assessment process. We have been ranked in the top ten states globally in the past ten to 15 years. I think we are in the top two or three in Europe. We perform really well there. Equally, we would be seen as one of the top three or four states in Europe in terms of the EASA and the standardisation process. We have no outstanding findings. The process is that the EASA comes in and look. If it sees something it feels is not compliant with the regulation, it will raise a finding. The level of the finding will depend on whether it is an issue of a level playing field across Europe or whether there is a safety issue. If there is a severe issue, that is another level of finding. We have very few. There are no open findings at the moment with the EASA or the ICAO.