Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept what the Minister of State said, except for two points. She has made me even more concerned than I was when I stood up. She seems to be under the impression that peers or people who currently work in airlines have to go to the peer support person in their own airline. She has stated this is the current practice. This is not the current practice and it is not precluded by EASA regulations. We absolutely have licence holders going to peers outside their own airlines at present because, as the Minister of State well knows, we have airlines whose management appoint the peers but they do not have the trust of people.

Either the Minister of State is misinformed - I would like her to confirm that maybe she is - or her understanding of the current practices under the EASA regulations at present is ill-informed. Maybe that is why the letter she sent to IALPA suggested that, if anybody went to peer support outside their own airline, they would lose the privacy and dignity entrusted to them within the EASA regulations. Absolutely nowhere in the regulations does it state that somebody has to go to the peer support person within their own airline but, more important, because the practice is that some licence holders are going to peers outside their own airlines, the Minister of State must confirm to this House that she does not believe, and it is not the practice, that people are losing the respect, privacy and dignity they would get in their interactions with whatever peer they go to. She has just suggested and put on the record that they will, which is a very dangerous place for us to be.