Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To reiterate, the focus of the forum is aviation safety. The groups I mentioned will have an important role to play in that.

In regard to the IAA, it is important to say there is a huge amount of expertise within that body. It has more than 120 safety experts on its staff, including 25 highly experienced pilots with more than 100 years of combined experienced and 25 highly experienced engineers with an aggregated 100 years of experience in all aspects of airworthiness. There are other safety experts as well, including air traffic controllers, air navigation service engineers and experts in aerodrome security, aircraft certification, pilot training and licensing, ground operations, charting, drone regulation, risk management, statistical analysis and aviation medicine. The list goes on. Senators can be assured the focus of the forum is aviation safety and only those who have an interest in that will be on the forum. It is in the interest of the IAA and all of us that it functions well. As I said, the Department will be monitoring the charter and making sure it is published as quickly as possible. We all have the same aim here, which is to ensure we have an effective and collaborative approach to aviation safety.