Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

When those two men or women get into the front of the aircraft and close the cockpit door, none of us will ever know what goes on in there until the aeroplane lands. Often, when one is flying somewhere, one sees a member of the cabin crew replacing a pilot while the latter pops out to the toilet or whatever, but we do not otherwise know what goes on. Like my colleagues, I want to know when I get on an aircraft that if the pilot had a problem that day, he or she did not have to bring that problem into the cockpit. Every one of us leaves our house every day with a plethora of different types of baggage we carry with us for the day. Some days that baggage is good and other days it is bad. On some days, we are carrying problems we cannot resolve. None of us is carrying those problems with us at 35,000 ft above the ground.

There is very little dividing us at this stage. Pilots are saying that if they get this amendment, they will be willing and able to participate in every way. I do not accept that the provisions are too onerous on the IAA. Members of the authority were able to find enough time to meet all of us to try to convince us this was the way to go. The IAA was found to be culpable in the case of Rescue 116 in so far as it was lacking in oversight. The Department was found to be an unintelligent consumer of aviation, without expertise in the area. Senator Doherty made an important point in this regard.We are five years out and the Department still does not have an aviation expert on its staff. The Irish Coast Guard still does not have an aviation expert on its staff. What is going on? I fully appreciate the Minister of State engaging with the Irish Aviation Authority, IAA, on everything and I respect its right to contact the Minister of State on any matter on which it feels fit to advise her or on which to comment. I have no difficulty whatsoever with the IAA doing that. I do have difficulty with it being the main influencer in this Bill. I have difficulty with the Minister of State not accepting that this would be reviewed at least once every three years. It is not an onerous task. It will not consume the IAA totally. If somebody needs to be employed to carry out that work over a three-year period then employ that person. God knows the Minister of State read out a list of experts the last day she was in the Chamber. There are enough of them out there.

This Bill needs to pass and this issue and the pilot's form have been holding us up. That is what is holding us up. Let us be honest about it; if the Minister of State had difficulties in her Department, she would feel comfortable talking to another Minister. She would not come in here and talk to us about it. We would not sit down in the dining room and have a chat about the difficulty of dealing with people or whatever. The Minister of State deals at her peer level and is happy to do that. That is all we are looking for here. If we can move to that stage, we can probably move on with this Bill. Failing that, I am really concerned that advice will come back from Europe that we have gone the wrong direction and if it does, then where are we? I am still of the view that we should not proceed with this today but there we go.