Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I probably should have interjected before Senator Doherty rose to speak, but now is as good a time as any. The Minister of State will have received a letter today from IALPA. I wish to put the content of that letter on the record of the House. It reads:

Dear Minister,

I refer to the script of the debate in Seanad Éireann on Thursday, 16 June 2022. An extract is attached for your convenience. A considerable amount of time in the debate was dedicated to the in-house (or lack of) aviation technical expertise of Department Officials. As you know, the R116 Accident Report does not comment favourably on the aviation technical expertise available in your Department. It is the IALPA observation and concern that none of the officials we met with you to discuss the Air Navigation & Transport Bill demonstrated an aviation technical expertise, at a level necessary to appreciate the significance of some provisions of EASA regulations and guidance material and to support appropriate transposition into national legislation.

The letter continues:

It has been an issue of considerable concern that the [Air Navigation and Transport Bill] was drafted, in the first instance, by officials who had unique access to the draftR116 Accident Report but had no expertise to the technical nuances of the Accident Report. As IALPA recalls the conversation, they stated that they took the draft findings into consideration when drafting the new Bill, but this was not evident to us in our reading of the draft Bill. It is our impression, and we could be wrong, that officials in your department relied heavily on the IAA for technical expertise in countering the IALPA amendments. It is our position, that if this is the case, then it was wholly inappropriate for you to rely on the advice from the very entity, the reform of which is the central thrust of the [Air Navigation and Transport Bill]. Further, we have pointed out in numerous correspondence what we believe to be incorrect or misleading interpretations of the EASA documentation which appear to support the view that there is an absence of aviation technical expertise available to you in the Department.

As you will recall, your speech in the Oireachtas [in] November 2021 placed reliance on the Bureau Veritas Report with regard to the IAA. We have raised with you directly the shortcomings in the Bureau Veritas report with respect to other recommendations in the R116 Accident Report, shortcomings explicitly identified in the report by the report's authors. Any reliance on this report as meeting the standard required in the recommendation is therefore, in our opinion, untenable.

In summary, ... we are concerned by your response in the Seanad (16 June) when you stated: "Yes, we have expertise in the Department in respect of-----". It is our observation that the Department has not changed the aviation technical expertise available to it before or after the R116 accident (March 2017) or since the publication of the Accident Report in November 2021.

We are discussing legislation that will regulate the IAA and other entities in this State for quite some considerable time to come. I asked the Minister of State at the last engagement here if she had an aviation expert on her staff. It is my belief, as well as that of IALPA, that her response was that she did. This is factually untrue. There is no aviation expert in the Department of Transport. The first thing I would like to establish before we go any further is whether it is the case that there is an expert employed by the Department of Transport. I am talking about a State employee, not a contractor or consultant, who is an aviation expert. I would like that question answered, after which I want to come back in.