Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the Minister of State to the House. There is no doubt that all public representatives in the Oireachtas have been hearing from workers in the aviation industry. Their communications to us have all been about their deep concern about their industry and jobs and the knock-on effect on their families and loved ones.

The aviation sector has been one of the sectors hardest hit by Covid, and all supports for the industry need to be kept in place. There is no doubt that we need to protect air routes during the pandemic but it is vital that we protect the many thousands of jobs in the industry. Thousands of workers in the aviation sector, from pilots, cabin crew and airport staff to those involved in leasing, ground crew and cleaning staff, are utterly dependent on the State at this time. While supports have been given to workers through the temporary wage subsidy scheme and the employment wage subsidy scheme, and while some structural supports have been given to the aviation industry, the industry requires a survival package. There is no other way to describe this. The industry is, of course, an innocent victim of what has happened as a result of Covid-19. There are thousands of families looking for leadership and protections. They are not, in the opinion of many, seeing enough of an effort from the Government at this time to save the industry – an important industry that connects our island with the rest of the world and, by extension, our economy with every other economy. The industry can ensure that when our recovery begins, it will be much faster because of the connections it has built up over a long period. We all hope the recovery will be as soon as possible, but when it comes the industry may not be in a position to offer us many of the connections and routes that so many have worked so hard on.

The question so many of those families and homes so dependent on aviation are asking is whether the aeroplanes currently on the ground and in airport hangars in Dublin Airport, Ireland West Airport, Shannon Airport and Cork Airport will be there in a month or six months or whether they will all be sold off. Every aircraft sold in this way represents potential job losses for this country.

I want to ask the Minister of State another question relevant to this debate. I continue to receive many representations from constituents who continue to have difficulty acquiring refunds for flights that have not taken off or that have been cancelled owing to Government regulations and current health advice. I would appreciate it if the Minister of State would let us know the current position on such refunds. With the forthcoming holiday abroad season likely to be adversely affected, it is important that those seeking refunds get answers to their queries as quickly as possible. The delays they have experienced are not good enough. A response by the Minister of State here today would be appreciated by many.

We all listened yesterday to the proceedings on the Health (Amendment) Bill 2021. There is no doubt it will have implications for the aviation industry. However, there is also no doubt the quicker we vaccinate our own population and keep out any further variants of the dreadful disease, the quicker the recovery time for the industry will be. The Labour Party proposed an amendment yesterday that would have resulted in mandatory hotel quarantine for people from all other states not including Northern Ireland. We tabled it again for the Seanad debate on Monday. Over recent months, we proposed a national aggressive suppression strategy. I, for one, would be very interested in hearing what the Minister of State responsible for transport thinks about why it is felt that mandatory hotel quarantine is currently essential for people from only 20 countries. As our party leader, Deputy Kelly, said yesterday in the Dáil, this virus is on tour. It does not know it can only board a plane from one of the 20 countries to come to Ireland. It could quite easily board a plane from a country that is not on the list because it travelled from its home country to that country and then booked its flight to Ireland.

Deputy Kelly asked why we are not doing everything we can for a given period to protect our people and why the equation is against the Irish people? On the one hand, the Government is limiting everybody's travel to a distance of 5 km; on the other, it is allowing people in from all over the world and, even though self-quarantine is a legal requirement, it is trusting them to quarantine at home for 14 days. If we do not introduce mandatory hotel quarantine for people from all countries outside this island, we are, in my opinion and that of many others, only delaying the reopening of the aviation industry. If we do not introduce mandatory hotel quarantine, we are not being serious about the thousands of jobs that each passing month threatens, nor are we trying to protect an industry that can and will play such an important part in the recovery in post-Covid Ireland.As the Labour Party's transport spokesperson, Deputy Duncan Smith, said in the Dáil on Wednesday:

The aviation sector is again being told that it will be at the end of the queue. There is no survival package for it. There is nothing to protect the workers' jobs or their terms and conditions. There is nothing to protect the companies to ensure that when we beat this virus, we will have a sector that will help to drive economic recovery.

What the industry needs is a survival package but also a Government that will introduce mandatory hotel quarantine for travellers from all other states for all non-essential travel. Yes, there will be short-term implications for the industry but if we continue to carry on as we have done with level 5 restrictions, followed by a reduced lockdown and then, possibly, a further lockdown then we more than likely will lose an industry that employs thousands and contributes so much to the economy of this island.

Finally, I thank the Minister of State and, indeed, the Minister for Transport for the recent announcement that the Athy distributor road project will go ahead. It is very important, as I discussed with the Minister for Transport, that this project goes ahead. I ask for a second bridge to be built in Newbridge, County Kildare, which, as the Minister of State is probably aware, part of the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF. I ask her to get behind this project too.