Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and I welcome the Bill she is bringing before the House, although at this point it does not go far enough, and we will talk about that shortly. As Senator Buttimer has pointed out, the last two years have been a very difficult time for the aviation industry. Indeed, the Oireachtas transport committee has spent an extraordinary amount of time looking at the rebuilding of the air transport communication system for the country. I compliment both Senator Dooley and Senator Buttimer on their input into the committee. They certainly have not let down the side they come from but they have had a global view as well, which I welcome.

I welcome the objective to merge the regulatory functions of the Irish Aviation Authority and the Commission for Aviation Regulation but I do so with some reservations, which I will get to shortly. I hope that in establishing an independent regulator, we are establishing a strengthened regulator, and I look forward to having a new commercial semi-State to manage Irish-controlled airspace.

One of the grave things that has bothered me for some time is the failure to date to have a written report on the crash of Rescue 116. It simply is not good enough and I do not know why that has not happened to date. Certainly, if we have an independent regulator who is strong enough, it will see to it that these things are reported on time. It should have been reported within 12 months. I know the European airline pilots are somewhat concerned about it.

I welcome what the Minister of State has said about the charges at Dublin Airport. That is a good thing and as it is consumer focused, I have no difficulty with it. However, I believe the Bill can be strengthened with some of the things I am going to mention.

A key stakeholder in all of this is the Irish Air Line Pilots Association, IALPA, which seems to be finding it difficult to have its concerns listened to. One of the things we need to talk about is licences. The Minister of State mentioned the licenceholders. It is somewhat ironic in this day and age that a pilot who is licensed to fly an aircraft has to go through his or her employer in order to make a recommendation or to notify the statutory authority of some particular difficulty he or she may have, and that applies not just to pilots, but also to engineers and to cabin crew. It is simply not good enough that they would have to go to their employer if, for example, they are complaining about some practice their employer has implemented which, in their view, calls into question the safety of the airline.

It is a well-justified concern that licenceholders have no mandate to interact directly with the new regulator. They run the risk of being caught between the commercial concerns of their employers and the regulatory or safety concerns they themselves have. Licenceholders need a formal way to engage with the regulator that is statute-based and away from the commercial owner of the fleet they are flying for. To all intents and purposes, we need a charter for licenceholders. In this way, both the licenceholders and the IAA will know precisely what their obligations are, and there will be no room for ambiguous interpretation by a commercial airline operator.

We have plenty of examples which I will not go into because in this country, we only have two main airline providers and they are extremely dominant. I was delighted to hear Senator Buttimer talk about Ryanair adding 22 new routes out of Cork, which is very good news, but it makes these airline companies extremely powerful when it comes to dealing with them, and that is something we need to be aware of.

There are a number of amendments that I want to bring to the attention of the Minister of State. Rather than walking into this House on Committee Stage to put the amendments forward and talk for God knows how long on them, and at the end of the day the amendments get kicked aside and voted down, I would much prefer to work with the Minister of State and her officials on the amendments we will be bringing forward.

Senator McGahon spoke about the crew support programme. We need a standard operating procedure for crew support systems. We need a set of guidelines but we do not need the airline having control over how that is set up. We do not need the airline having control over who will or who will not form the peer support group in an airline. It is too dangerous an industry not to provide the supports that pilots need and pilots need peer support that they can engage with and that they are not afraid to go to with their stories.

As I said on the licenceholders' charter, we cannot have a situation where the licenceholder, that is, the pilot, must go to his or her employer and say, “I have a difficulty with the regulations you are asking me to fly under and I need to go to the regulator with them”, only for the employer to say, “No, you cannot”. In the case of some of the airlines now using contract employees, it makes it very difficult for a licensed pilot to go outside the airline he is working for. I will be bringing forward an amendment on that issue and I know I will be supported by some of my colleagues.

The other amendment relates to investigation and administration penalties, and I know the Minister of State is aware of some of these issues. If there is a situation where there is an administrative problem and a sanction is needed, the sanctions we currently have are punitive. There is this idea that we can close down the airline because it is not doing something right, but we just cannot do that. We need a graduated set of sanctions whereby there might be a fine of €100,000, for the sake of argument, over some breach today. If the breach is still in place tomorrow, it goes to €200,000 and it goes up by €200,000 every day the breach is in place. I think that is a reasonable request from the airline pilots association.

When it comes to it, we should work on the four amendments that we will be bringing forward. This will not disrupt the Bill. The Bill is a great idea and the Minister of State is going to get the Bill through. However, this will strengthen the Bill, it will bring all of the stakeholders onside and it will make for a robust system in the future. There should never be anything left to ambiguity when we are talking about safety and airline practices. I ask the Minister of State to give me a commitment today that she will engage with me, and with other colleagues who have dealt with IALPA and various other agencies that are supporting crews and pilots within the airline industry, to see if we can deliver something that will meet everybody's needs, not just the needs of the commercial suppliers. I will leave it at that as my time is running out.