Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

A peer support group is vital, particularly in light of the crash in the Alps some years ago. Part of the rationale behind a peer support group is that people are dealing with others of similar qualifications to themselves and dealing with people who can treat them in a confidential manner, and they can deal with people who are one step removed from the management of the organisation. Let us consider a pilot who is suffering a particular mental health issue. How comfortable would any of us be if we had to pick up the phone this morning and say “I really cannot fly today. My state of mental health would not facilitate that.” How many of us would be willing to ring, knowing we were going to speak to a member of management to tell them that? In these circumstances, people need to be in a protected zone, in a zone where people of similar qualification and similar employment to themselves can understand the issues. Our amendment is very clear about providing all of the supports that are required. People need to know that whatever they say to their peer support group, it is not going to be transmitted to management and that help will be found for such a person and he or she may be put in the direction of psychological support and so on. To go back to Senator Boylan's point about accountable managers, the managers have no place in the peer support group, none whatsoever, as far as I am concerned. This is about employees at the same level dealing with employees, dealing with their issues and making sure we do not have a situation where they put people's lives at risk.

Yesterday we had the Tánaiste in the House to speak about the Sick Leave Bill, which he introduced in the House. One of the points made yesterday was that people went to work during Covid-19 purely because they were afraid they would lose their income or afraid of the damage it would do to them and, in so doing, they risked other people's lives. A pilot who feels, for one reason or another, that he or she cannot take to the skies today needs to have a safe space where they can talk through their issues and explain their problems. They then need to know that they will not be required to fly, their job will not be at risk and, ultimately, their colleagues will cover for them and make sure they are given time and space to deal with the issues that they feel prevent them from flying safely.

Let us remember that when one of these things takes off, there are several hundred people whose lives depend on two people up in the cockpit who are awake and who are cognisant of all of the dangers that are involved when an aircraft is in the sky. These things fly at several hundred miles per hour. During our trip to Shannon, as Senator Buttimer will recall, we all took a stab at being air traffic controllers. At the speed these things fly, a split second can cause a disaster. From that point of view, I am really strong on the issue of peer support not having any relationship to management, other than to be able to say to them that, for example, Gerard Craughwell will not be flying today. I will leave it at that and listen to the other contributions.