Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not finished. The legal advice that IALPA has obtained for the Seanad Members clearly states that Article 4 provides for certain principles to be observed by member states and their agencies. I do not see how we have upheld that article to that end. I disagree with my colleague, Senator Craughwell, about invoking Standing Order 70. That is probably premature. What I have done, however, off my own back and, I hope, with the co-operation of colleagues here is that I have written to Commissioner Adina Vlean, who is the Commissioner for Transport in the EU, to seek her views as to whether we are living up to the standards that are expected in Article 4 of the European Commission regulations. I do not suppose that we will get a response for a few days, at very best, and given that we have an awful lot to debate, I do not intend to hold up the Committee Stage any longer, other than to say the following.

Both inside and outside of this House, I have been accused, in taking the actions that I have during the course of the debate on this Bill, of vote seeking because I am in a new constituency. Every pilot in the country apparently lives in Swords and Skerries. For the record, the licenceholders in my family live in County Wicklow and County Meath. My only interest in this Bill is in trying to make flying safer for the people who operate aircraft, the licenceholders in this country, the pilots and all of the people who make sure that our aircraft are safe. I want to make sure our aircraft are safe for the people like me, you, and everybody else in this room, who just use planes to go on our holidays, meet our family or for work.

I do not think I need to remind people that in the early hours of 14 March 2017, Coastguard Rescue 116 crashed into the sea in County Mayo. All of the four crew members on board that night passed away; Ms Dara Fitzpatrick, Mr. Mark Duffy, Mr. Paul Ormsby and Mr. Ciarán Smith, whose family live up the road from where I live. I cannot even begin to imagine the hurt and the grief that Mr. Smith's family have been feeling and suffering for the past five years and will feel for the rest of their lives. The centre of their gravity was taken away from them that night. Parents lost a son; a wife lost her husband and best friend and those children lost their family. While the accident absolutely did not happen on the watch of this Government or Minister of State, the recommendations arising from that accident and the responses to those recommendations are on their watch.

Recommendation 2021029 basically said that the Department of Transport needed to review its in-house expertise to ensure it had the technical necessary capabilities to intelligently oversee all activities relating to search and rescue. On 1 February this year, the Minister replied to say that the Department would review the availability of in-house expertise to ensure that it retained necessary technical capabilities to intelligently oversee. The comment of the air accident investigation unit, AAIU, to that was that it noted the Minister's response and it noted that the recommendation was still in the process of implementation, five years after four people lost their lives. That recommendation is still in the process of being implemented.

Recommendation 2021031 stated "the Minister for the Transport should ensure that the Department has ... [specific] specialist aviation expertise", to ensure it can "discharge [its] effective oversight ... [with a] full range of IAA activities". The response from the Minister was that he wished to say that the recommendation was accepted and that the Department had contracted aviation expertise available to it. I will not even go through the rest of it.

This is still in progress. We still do not have aviation expertise in the Department. What we have is periodical availability to the Minister. The AAIU notes the Minister's response and it notes that the recommendation is still in the process of being implemented. Five years later and four lives lost, we are still processing the recommendations of a damning report into the loss of life of people who work on behalf of this State.