Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

Everyone agrees that this is an appalling situation for tens of thousands of travellers, including business people, holiday makers and people coming and going to see their relatives. Some are stranded this afternoon at foreign airports, which is a truly horrendous situation.

The first question that will be asked is what exactly the Minister has done to try to prevent this happening. Although, generally, the public did not know about this until yesterday, a few hours before this disaster befell us and we lost 120 flights, the Minister and his Department have known since the beginning of this month that there was a dispute in regard to the new air management system which this country operates along with Denmark and Sweden, and the 10% or so of controllers who are routinely pulled out of daily operations to retrain into new systems - this was a significant new system. Is it true that the IAA informed the Minister early this month that this crisis was coming down the line and that no steps were taken to try to avert it and prevent this ongoing disaster?

We have seen people in floods of tears at the airport, some from the other side of the world who are visiting our country, spending money here and supporting Irish jobs. Many have missed their connections, which is an appalling prospect for them. Did the Minister know about this? Was he informed by Mr. Brennan or Mr. Kavanagh, the director of human resources at the IAA, that this was taking place? Given there was a Labour Court process and that the LRC had dealt with this, why were there suspensions? The Minister said the substantive issues also include a possible pay change related to Towards 2016 and the huge €234 million hole in the pension fund. However, these issues were going to the Labour Court next week so why did these suspensions take place? Does the Minister agree that all suspensions should be ended and people should be asked to get into the industrial relations machinery to try to resolve this matter?

My party leader mentioned an important point to the Minister this morning, namely, that before Christmas the Minister and the Government abandoned social partnership. We have the national implementation body. A Deputy referred to the problem we had in this regard two or three years ago when we discussed in the House what was only a threatened strike action at that time. This could go the national implementation body. Does a national implementation body still exist? Has it got a role? Could it have prevented today's events from happening and enabled our vital aviation industry to go forward?

It is a desperate situation and, unfortunately, once again a major aspect of our transport infrastructure, one of the most important of all because we are an island people, has been allowed to stop. The Minister is the man on the bridge.

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