Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----licenceholders' charter and licenceholders’ forum. We have amendments from the Minister of State that somewhat waters down the licenceholders' forum to a stakeholders' forum. I must be honest in expressing some grave concerns with regard to importing the important structure and action of establishing a national peer support programme to a committee meeting that nobody will be compelled to attend. We have been told we could not possibly have three-year reviews of the current peer support programmes that are operated disparately and differently by the airlines operating in Ireland because we might overwhelm the IAA's resources. However, one of the requirements of the IAA, under the EASA regulations that were specifically set down for peer support, as negotiated in 2018, was to regulate and review the peer support programmes.

We are asking for reviews to be done every three years as opposed to the Minister of State's position that these should be done as and when the IAA sees fit because we have a resource problem and we might overwhelm the authority. If there is a resource problem, we need to give the IAA more resources. It is responsible for regulating the safety of our airline industry. Nothing could be more important.

The reason I sincerely believe we should not delay establishing a national peer support programme any longer is not because I want it but because our pilots told us, on the record in the Oireachtas committee, that they are afraid to come forward about having made a mistake or experiencing issues in their own lives, whether it be a mental health issue or substance abuse, for fear of being punished by their own airline. That is on the record. I am not sure what we are waiting on before we introduce regulations in law to make sure the IAA, as we were told during meetings during the year, does not lose the flexibility it believes it would lose if we put them in legislation.

Officials from IALPA told the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications that people in their organisation had suffered from stress and mental health problems and some of their employers see these issues as burdens and as getting in the way of their commercial interests.

The purpose of this Bill is to split the Irish Aviation Authority into two so that we will have a safety regulatory authority that is not reliant on funding from commercial airlines.Right now, we are fighting against a tide of giving more powers to the IAA to ensure that airlines operate under the guise of best international and European practice in regard to safety and regulatory frameworks. Our excuse for not doing it now and leaving it to another day is that we do not have enough teased-out data or conversations. We have had a whole year for conversation. We have put down comprehensive amendments showing exactly how we expect the State to fund, finance, regulate and operate a national peer support programme. The aviation organisation that represents our licenceholders - the men and women who put on their uniforms and get up into the cockpits to fly us places - is begging for a national peer support programme to be put in place because it cares so much about its members. We should care as much as it does about those members. More importantly, we should care about every single person who sits on an aeroplane equally as much as IALPA, cares about the licenceholders it represents in this country.

There is absolutely no uniformity across the peer supports that are operated, and the IAA knows it. The authority has conducted its reviews in the years since 2018 and it certainly knows there is no uniformity across the peer support programmes that are operated by some of the largest employers in this country. Yet, it does not want its hands tied. It wants to retain the flexibility of not having legislation in place to govern safety and regulation, particularly in an area in which it is failing in its remit and duties. Mr. Alan Brereton of IALPA told the transport committee `that there is an average of one pilot suicide every 18 months in Ireland. That is an absolutely stark figure when we consider how few pilots there are in this country. In a seven-year period, six pilots in Ireland took their own lives. I am not saying that a peer support programme run consistently and uniformly would have saved every one of those lives but it certainly would have gone a hell of a long way to ensuring people had supports when they put their hands up and said they needed help.

We are dithering around here. A forum will be established after this legislation is passed that absolutely nobody will be compelled to attend. A charter will be drafted at some future point setting out rules with which nobody will be compelled to comply. I really do not understand it. The amendments are welcome because they put something in the legislation that was not there when it was brought forward a year ago, but the language in them is so loose and watery as to be absolutely ineffective. We are standing here under the pretence of doing something when, in fact, we are not really doing anything at all. We certainly are not making aviation safer.

Our pilots have expressly laid out their fears. We spent the past year being subject to what I can only call lobbying - it would not be accurate to call it gentle persuasion - by the regulator to persuade us it does not need the legislative amendments we are proposing in this Bill. That makes me really worried. The regulator says it does not need legislation to govern the peer support programmes that are regulated by the EU but it certainly is not providing that regulation itself in any way, shape or form that is acceptable to the licenceholders. It may be acceptable to the airline operators, which might be why this Bill is being brought forward in the first instance. We have a regulatory authority that is reliant on the commercial funds from airline operators to survive and have the resources to do what it is supposed to be doing. Surely to God in a Bill that is splitting the commercial aspect of looking after and regulating airlines in the context of safety elements, it is absolutely fundamental that the safety regulatory authority would have the tools, power and laws to ensure our airlines operate EU and International Aviation Safety Assessment, IASA, regulations with uniformity and in the best interests of crew and passengers. I really do not know why a regulatory authority would say to Members of Seanad Éireann that it needs flexibility. I just do not get it. The flexibility it has displayed in the past number of years certainly does not give me any confidence whatsoever.

The reality is that we have airline pilots sitting in front of Oireachtas committees telling us they are afraid because of the environment and the employment conditions in which they work and because of the fast and loose way the IAA chooses to impose the EU regulations. There are people in the industry who are not willing to bring forward their concerns, daily issues, stresses or whatever it happens to be that impinges on their ability to perform their duties. They are not willing to come forward, share that information and get help. I do not know why a regulator would want to allow different interpretations of peer support requirements as directed by the EU. I would love if the Minister of State could explain to me, above all, why we are going to continue with an operation that has not served Irish aviation and Irish licenceholders well at all since 2018. We are talking about people's lives being at stake, not just through accidents but arising from their having difficulties in their own lives and not being able to get support. I would love to know why we are putting off dealing with this issue to some future date and some future meeting at which not everybody will be around the table and at which some charter will be drawn up with which nobody will ever be compelled to comply. It is absolutely bizarre, to say the least.

There is an old saying that there is never the right time to do the right thing. The right time is now, not at some point in the future. The right time for us to do the right thing is now.