Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this Bill. Thousands of workers in the aviation sector, at all levels and grades, are keeping a keen eye on what has been happening in the Dáil and Seanad in recent weeks, and they will also be doing so in the upcoming weeks. While the Labour Party will be supporting this Bill and while, like Sinn Féin, it looks forward to engaging constructively on amendments it will be submitting, we are surprised that, important as it is, the Bill is still about process and still technical. It comes at a time when we are sitting fewer days and for fewer hours to deal specifically with emergency Covid-19-related legislation. I am encouraged by the Minister of State's words to the effect that what needs to be done in the aviation sector will be done, but these words have been stated by the Minister, Taoiseach and Tánaiste for a number of months. While supports have been given to workers through the temporary wage subsidy scheme and employment wage subsidy scheme and while some structural supports have been given to the company, the aviation industry requires a survival package. There is no other way of putting it.

I ask the Minister of State to look at today's letters page in The Irish Times. A letter by Captain Joe May has been published. He is not a constituent of mine but he speaks for a broad constituency of aviation workers. They are not seeing an effort by the Government to save the industry, an important industry that, by its very nature, connects us to the rest of the world and connects our economy to every economy in Europe, North America and beyond and that will ensure, when this pandemic ends, our recovery will be as fast as possible. While they are concerned about the very basics, including financial supports for workers and the questions of whether they can pay their mortgages, cover their bills and retain their jobs, they are also very much concerned about the tenuousness of the structural issues at the airport. Will the airplanes on the ground or in hangars still be in Dublin, Shannon or Cork in a month, two months, three months or six months, or will they be sold off? Any aircraft lost to one of our national airlines means job losses will soon follow. That is a fact. These are genuine concerns. Trade unions and other workers' representative groups are jumping up and down, as it were.

If, as I really hope, talks are taking place at a senior level, can we hear about them? Will the Minister of State give us some confidence that there are supports and a package that will keep the industry in existence until such time as we get through this public health crisis? The workers are as scared and worried about this pandemic as every other person in this country. They understand it and the virulence of the variants. They understand how scary the virus is. They see the numbers of deaths and of people in intensive care, who include their families and friends. There is hardly a family in this country that has not now been touched by this disease, and we probably all know someone who has died from it. The workers understand the impact it is having on their industry, but they also understand it is their industry that will be relied upon to get us out of this.

While this Bill is welcome and needed, it is not at the front line of what aviation workers and their families are seeking from the Government, this House and all of us. That needs to be addressed, in terms of the communications. The public health measures that are being brought in needed to be brought in and the Labour Party supports a national aggressive suppression strategy. As stated by a previous speaker, bringing in such an aggressive strategy to keep the virus down should not be seen as being contrary or set against the need to protect the aviation industry or as an attack on the aviation industry. The reason we need a national aggressive suppression strategy is so the economy can reopen and workers can go back to their jobs, including the aviation industry and the support industries around it. They need to be looked at as two sides of the same coin moving forward together.

I am concerned, particularly following public utterances of the Tánaiste, that this will involve an adversarial approach. When this House is discussing mandatory hotel quarantine under the legislation which will apparently take weeks, which is very disappointing, I am concerned it will be set as an adversarial approach to the aviation industry. The aviation industry is an innocent victim of what has happened with Covid-19. There are thousands of families out there looking for leadership and protections. We really need it. There is a whole communications piece that needs to be done by the Government that it has failed on. I am encouraged by the words of the Minister of State in her opening statement but they need to be stronger and backed up by visible action that people support. There are very few industries and workers in this country who are as politically engaged as people who have worked in the aviation sector. They have gone through many recessions and privatisations. They have gone through an awful lot, so no one will pull the wool over their eyes, no matter what they say in this Chamber. Everyone in the aviation sector is wise to the realities of their sector. We all need to be careful about how we speak to the workers and how truthful we are to them about what is going on. There is a gap in what the Government is saying and what it is offering to those workers and that sector.

There are some issues with the substance of the Bill. The Bill is welcome, we support it and it makes sense. However, similar to an Teachta O'Rourke earlier, we will look to bring amendments in relation to the need for graduated sanctions. At the moment, the only sanction imposed on entities, be they airlines, maintenance organisations, airports or licence holders, is a revocation of their licence or permit. Many times that is not commensurate to a failing or misstep but, at the same time, some sanction needs to be given. This Bill is an opportunity to do that in detail and well.

I am delighted the Minister of State has acknowledged the work of the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications Networks. The transport committee still feels like a new committee but we are very committed and we put an awful lot of work into that report. There are sensible proposals in it. I hope any amendments to this Bill brought forward by me or other members of that committee through our parties will be seen as sensible and constructive in a similar way to the work we do through the committee.

There is a cultural issue in relation to aviation and how the stakeholders in aviation are dealt with. It is hard to discuss that through legislation but it does not make it any less real or tangible or in any way less in need of discussion. We have issues where workers' organisations representing licence holders have been excluded from certain forums at the request of larger stakeholders. That is a huge problem which feeds into a culture of diminishing workers' rights in the industry, continues to push down on the trade unions and gives primacy to large companies that have poor records in this regard. By virtue of having these stakeholders, workers and trade unions excluded, the companies put themselves in a leadership position in terms of driving policy which is not, in many areas, to the betterment of workers. That needs to be looked at and we will bring amendments on the issue. It feeds into issues relating to working time, workers in the industry being classed as flexible workers and the impact that has on them seeking justice through the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, or the industrial relations architecture of the State. There are other issues in relation to peer support programmes and charters. It is a question of acknowledging the role that workers of all grades play, bringing them into the process and developing a collective culture in the regulation of the industry. There is an opportunity to do that in this Bill and I hope we will do so.

I want to hammer home the fact that the aviation industry requires a survival package. There are many complex issues in relation to aviation. There are issues related to noise regulation. I echo the calls of the previous speaker on extending the consultation period and bringing the residents in. I have put in my own submission on that. The DAA and others are seeking to have planning conditions set aside in advance of the runway being built and brought into operation. It has not even been tested. That is really damaging to An Bord Pleanála and the planning and decision-making architecture of the State. It is like saying, "Okay, you have made a decision but we disagree with it so straight away we are going to ask for it to be set aside by just making the same case over and over again." That is not good enough. The residents' voices need to be heard and should always be heard on that.

There is some reference to climate issues in this Bill in terms of the medium-term responsibility that the aviation sector has in relation to climate. At the moment, it is having a minimal impact on climate because everything is grounded. In the medium and long term, there are huge questions and challenges in relation to that. Everyone, including the workers, needs to be included. We will always need a strong aviation industry in this country, by nature of the fact that we are an island.

These are hugely complex issues. As we role out vaccinations, I hope the Government will take on board the approach of the Labour Party and others in relation to a national aggressive suppression strategy - zero-Covid or whatever - to get the numbers down and keep them down. When we call upon our aviation sector, it has to be there. The only body that is able to ensure that is our national Government. It has been done all over Europe in partner states. There is a whole list, which has been printed again this week, of the hundreds of millions that have gone into airlines in more or less all EU member states. Yet here, on an island on the coast of Europe, we have not supported the industry in that regard. That needs to be tackled and addressed.

See this speech in context