Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With respect to the Minister of State, I got a very vague answer that everybody at the table has some input into safety. We are talking about licenceholders and the IAA is the State agency responsible for regulating them. I cannot for the life of me see how many of the categories of persons the Minister of State listed, with huge respect to them and the role they carry out in the industry, will play any role whatsoever in the forum. In fact, they will serve only to confuse the discussions that will be had at the one, two or whatever number of meetings take place in order to arrive at a licenceholders charter. I am curious as to what will happen after the first meeting, which we envisaged and hoped, and the IAA expected, would lead to the first draft of a charter, which would be a living document that could be revised after every meeting in accordance with different suggestions that are made. We will be here in a couple of years and we will not even have the first charter announced because there will be so many people around the table, most of whom will not have any direct input whatsoever into the regulation of aviation safety in this country.