Seanad debates

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Air Navigation and Transport Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages

 

10:30 am

Photo of Gerard CraughwellGerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Quite apart from contact with IALPA and individual pilots making contact with me, what has driven the debate over the past two and a half years is the Rescue 116 incident. Perhaps if legislation had been in place alongside greater oversight, more engagement and a management willing to listen to its employees, things might have been highlighted sooner. In the report on Rescue 116, we find countless errors and examples of unwillingness to listen. A classic example is the overall lighting in the cockpit. That has driven me through all of this. If we had strong legislation in place and the ability for crew to go outside the organisations for which they work to seek support, things might have been highlighted much sooner and four lives might not have been lost.

I totally concur with everything Senator Doherty said. I recognise that it is not easy for her to be arguing from our side because she is a Government Senator. What we have tried to do is bring home the importance of the people who operate at the coalface of this organisation and the importance of their voice and of having systems in place to support them.Sadly, those systems have been lacking. I cannot let this last part of the Bill go without drawing down what I have said time and again, which is that a Department of Transport without aviation expertise in it is a farce beyond belief. We have an air accident investigation report that states we should have in-house expertise, and for some unexplainable reason we do not have that.

On the peer support group, if I were a pilot, I would want to be able to choose my peer support and go to that person to engage with him or her. It might give me the courage to raise issues at a much higher level if I had somebody in the background supporting me. To restrict that support to within the organisation only simply would not work. I ask the Minister of State, even at this late stage, to accept this amendment. She has been more than willing in recent months to assist and move this legislation forward. As Senator Doherty said, I believe we have the best we could get in the circumstances we have been working in. It is still not perfect - it has a long way to go before it is - and I hope we do not find ourselves back in the House in a few years' time eating humble pie and trying to amend this legislation to bring in some of the matters we have talked about over the past two and a half years. I will press the amendment.

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