Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I was not going to participate in the debate but like many other people I am incensed by what is happening in Irish airports today, whether it is my own airport in Cork, Dublin or elsewhere. We have enough obstacles as a country and an economy without 300 people deciding to shut down Ireland for four hours with respect to air traffic. In addition, they are inconveniencing all the other airlines which transit through Irish airspace on journeys that do not involve landing in Ireland.

I wish to emphasise again the point made by Deputy O'Dowd. Will the Minister ensure that we will not see a repeat of this in future by introducing legislation that will require a no-strike element or clause in the contracts of air traffic controllers in future? The Minister could go even further and make it illegal for controllers to strike by putting them in the same category as the Garda, the fire services and the Army, which legally are not allowed to strike.

There must of course be industrial relations machinery that can allow people to air their grievances and facilitate discussions on the introduction of new technology or pay agreements, for example. The capacity must exist to deal with complex or indeed simple problems. The Labour Relations Commission exists for that. I welcome the Minister's unambiguous statement as to who is to blame. With an issue such as this the public has a right to expect that the Government will take charge of this issue and ensure it will not happen again.

I regard air traffic control as absolutely essential to the running of an island economy and people should be able to come and go from this island without having this kind of farcical disruption, which is costing this country a fortune in finance and reputation. The Minister would get strong support from this party if he moved to ensure there is no repeat of this and at the same time took a responsible approach to ensuring that genuine industrial relations can be resolved. The recourse to strike action and holding a country to ransom to try to ratchet up pressure on the Irish Aviation Authority is a totally unacceptable tactic in a dispute between the two bodies at the moment.

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