Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State was kind enough to organise meetings not only for the groups of Senators but also individually with members of the IAA. Genuinely it was one of the weirdest meetings that I have ever been at. Literally the representatives of the IAA were trying to convince me that they did not need further regulations or the ability to regulate an industry for which the authority is responsible. The letter I received from Jim Gavin this week was one of the most bizarre letters I have ever received from a State agency representative in my 14 years as a public representative.

I wish to speak to amendment No. 1 first, and then separately to amendment No. 2. This proposal is to ask in legislation to adopt a licenceholders' forum which is distinctly different from a stakeholders' forum. Let us be clear about it. The licenceholders are the people in this country who have to go through major professional training to make sure that they are licenceholders and that they have the authority, expertise and professionalism to be able to guide the aviation industry and carry out its functions. What they are trying to find is a space where in law they have a forum that will allow them to discuss the ongoing issues they have with regard to safety in the Irish aviation industry, to discuss collectively as licenceholders and those responsible for it how they will address those issues to make it compelling for every licenceholder to attend those meetings.That includes the IAA representatives, our airlines, unions and every licence holder with a stake in ensuring our aeroplanes and helicopters fly under the safest possible conditions under legislation. We have been talking about this for many months because the IAA does not want to put the stakeholder or licence holder forum in legislation. It attempted to convince us that it would have the meetings anyway and that there was absolutely no need for compellability. To my mind, we have had in the past ten years an industry that has conducted meetings, albeit very rarely. That serious major players in the Irish market choose not to attend those meetings means one is talking to oneself. If there is no compellability applying to everyone with a serious stake in the industry, I do not know what we are at.

We as legislators are attempting to give a regulatory authority, a State agency whose sole job is to ensure the safety not only of service providers in the industry but also the 2 million-plus Irish citizens who will use the services of the industry this year, powers of regulation. It does not seem to want to have the laws to regulate the industry; it wants to be able to do so on a wing and a prayer - excuse my pun. I find that really worrying. That is why I believe it is really important for us to talk about putting on a statutory footing a licence holders forum that compels attendance on the part of those responsible for the safety of aviation. I am talking about sitting at the table with the regulatory authority responsible for ensuring safety legislation is adhered to and about everyone operating openly and transparently in front of each other, with each other and for each other.

Amendment No. 1 sets out the mechanism for the licence holders forum exactly as we would like to see it. It specifies who should attend, how often meetings should be held and how often and where the minutes should be published. This is so everything discussed and proposed by the airlines, unions and anybody with a licence and vested interest in ensuring the safety of our aviation industry, including the IAA, will be dealt with openly and transparently and not on the basis of a wing and a prayer and a nudge and a wink indicating there might be a meeting this year or as soon as we can get around to it, having regard to the language and the amendments from the Government. I ask the Minister of State and, indeed, the officials who have been advising her to seriously respect the merits of this amendment and think seriously about those who are genuinely seeking to be assured, be they workers and regulators in the industry or ordinary pundits like me who will be getting on an aeroplane at some point soon, so those responsible for keeping us safe will be integral to that task and do their job in the open and in the public eye. That is what the first amendment is about.

My second point is about the licence holders charter that will arise from a number of meetings and govern how everybody must conduct themselves and their business. Attendance by everybody at the forum is so important in the first place because, if people are not in attendance, they will not have an input into the charter. In that case, they will have a get-out-of-jail clause implying they do not actually have to adhere to the charter. As proposed, there would be nothing on a statutory footing and those who did not attend would not know what was said of them. The regulatory authority is not looking for any regulatory powers to enforce what is decided at the forum through the charter. I have believed from the very beginning that we need to put the licence holders forum on a statutory footing. More important, we need to ensure that the licence holders charter is a living, breathing document that can be amended at every single meeting of the forum and that new ideas can be suggested to ensure we are safe every single time we go up in a helicopter, aeroplane or other such aircraft. We must ensure everybody is compelled by law to live up to the standards therein. The only way we can do that is by putting both of these amendments on the legislative footing and guaranteeing that the IAA has the authority, teeth and backbone to ensure all our airlines do exactly what they are advised and what they are obliged to do. Every other union or licence holder would be singing off the same sheet. If we cannot achieve this in a public and transparent way, we must question why we are doing any of this at all. At present, there is no compellability, and there are no licence obligations if there is no legislation to empower any airline or licence holder to do what the IAA tells it if they do or do not show up to a meeting.

We are either serious about safety in aviation or we are not. What we do today in considering this legislation is a marker to show we should be serious. If we do not do what I say, I really wonder about the point of having a regulatory authority that does not want to have the legal status to regulate an industry that is so crucial. As Senator Craughwell has said, it literally comes down to the difference between life and death. We are mourning four people, and their families will never get over their loss. What we do today and in this legislation should be a mark of respect for the service those people gave to us.