David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton. As my colleague, an Teachta O'Rourke, has set out, Sinn Féin will be supporting this Bill. It makes sense to streamline the set-up in this area and for there to be a single, stand-alone regulator and commercial air traffic control operator. There are many other issues that could be addressed in the Bill. These include a graduated fines system to create a more robust sanctions process, the creation of a stakeholder forum to ensure the inclusion of all parties, including, most importantly, workers, and the ability for the Irish Aviation Authority to be able to deal comprehensively with industrial relations disputes or refer them to the Workplace Relations Commission.

All elected representatives in this State have been hearing from workers in the aviation sector who are very worried about their prospects of returning to work. The sector has been hit very hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and supports for workers need to remain in place. It is important that we protect air connectivity routes during the pandemic, but the Minister of State cannot forget about the workers in the sector. Many of them have families and dependents who reply on her to represent them at Cabinet and ensure that appropriate and necessary supports remain in place for them. It is essential to managing the pandemic on this island that travel in and out of the State is hugely regulated in the period ahead. This must not be to the detriment of workers and all of the economic supports need to remain in place for them. I trust that the Minister of State will be proactive on this issue when speaking with her ministerial colleagues in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, also needs to be more proactive when it comes to tackling importation of the Covid-19 virus onto this island. We need to see him being more proactive in engaging with his counterpart in the North and in helping the Minister for Health to deliver a safe framework for managing the pandemic across this island, including a regulated transport system. I cannot stress enough the importance of all-island co-operation to ensure a maximum suppression strategy is successful. Managing travel is essential to the success of such a strategy.

One area in which the Government has been weak is the sharing of data. I appreciate that this is the responsibility of the Minister for Health rather than the Minister for Transport, but the latter has responsibility for passenger locator forms. There has not been enough sharing of any of the data on passengers coming into the island, whether into Belfast or Dublin. The Northern Ireland Assembly's health committee heard this morning that no formal request for data sharing of passenger locator forms has been received on its end. The Minister of State might be able to tell us why this is the case and what the Minister is doing to ensure maximum cross-Border co-operation in fighting the pandemic.

I will conclude by raising an issue which it would be remiss of me not to mention, namely, mandatory quarantine. The Government has been very weak on travel restrictions. The Minister has taken advice from NPHET and watered it down or, in some cases, not implemented it at all. We need island-wide mandatory quarantining in designated facilities. That is the only way to stop importation of the virus. The approach the Government is taking will miss perhaps 40% of the cases coming into the State and, indeed, onto the island. It is shameful that it has taken this long even to introduce such measures. NPHET recommended last summer that mandatory quarantine should be introduced. It is something that needs to be addressed.

We support the substance of this Bill but there are areas in which we would like to see it strengthened and, as I outlined, aspects of the whole set-up that we would like to see improved.

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