Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for facilitating this important debate tonight and for his opening statement. I listened to it and I read it and it gave me a sense that the gravity of the situation affecting the aviation sector is not lost on the Minister.

I welcome the setting up of a task force. It is a welcome and much-needed move. Will the Minister commit to the House tonight that the trade unions or their representatives, namely, SIPTU, the Irish Air Line Pilots' Association, IALPA, Fórsa and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, will be represented on that task force? It is a must, as Deputy Quinlivan said earlier.

I refer to the temporary wage subsidy scheme. It was welcome that the Government applied it and that the aviation sector turned it up. It was delivered in bad faith by a number of companies in the aviation sector. Does the Minister consider it regrettable now that conditionality was not placed on the temporary wage subsidy scheme in terms of the retention of jobs and in terms of the topping up of wages? To follow on from that question, will the Minister support the extension of the temporary wage subsidy scheme to the major aviation companies as well as companies such as Swissport, Gate Gourmet and OCS, which provide ground operations, catering and cleaning? Does the Minister support that scheme being extended until the end of this year? We have seen that even the most optimistic projections indicate that passenger numbers would only be back to 50% of 2019 levels in November and December, so this scheme would be much-needed for all of the rest of the year.

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