Bríd Smith challenges aviation bailouts and calls for just transition
Bríd Smith moved an amendment from People Before Profit Solidarity, arguing the original motion fails to address aviation workers' hardship, industry demands for state aid, public health risks and climate change. She pressed for a different model for aviation that protects workers, public health and the climate rather than returning to unchecked expansion.
Workers' conditions and industry conduct
She detailed widespread hardship across the aviation sector since the COVID crisis began, including massive job layoffs, forced redundancies, pay cuts, reduced hours and the tearing up of contracts and rights. She criticised managements for claiming concern for workers while simultaneously undermining them, citing Aer Lingus delays in filing social welfare forms and Ryanair forcing staff to sign nine new contracts and sacking at least eight trade union activists across its European operation.
Industry demands, public health and testing
She said aviation representatives repeatedly sought increased state aid and relaxation of public health guidelines in committee hearings while insisting travel is safe. She criticised airlines for failing to implement rapid testing at airports earlier in the crisis, noting it is only now being considered ten months into the pandemic despite practices elsewhere.
Climate change and the model for aviation
She rejected calls to "get back to normal" through endless airport expansion and competition between numerous airlines, calling such expansion lunacy and unsustainable in the face of a worsening climate crisis. She warned against accounting maneuvers that ignore aviation greenhouse gas emissions and argued that a just transition for the aviation workforce is essential.
Governance concerns and oversight
She voiced alarm at the state's appointment of a former Ryanair CEO as head of the Irish Aviation Authority, likening it to making the poacher the gamekeeper. She asked the minister to explain that appointment and to address how the authority will oversee health, safety and consumer rights given that background.
Parliamentary action and demands
She moved the People Before Profit Solidarity amendment to the motion and left the minister with specific questions about appointments and oversight, calling for the state to prioritise a just transition, worker protections and robust public health measures in any support for the aviation industry.
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I wish at this stage to move the amendment of People Before Profit Solidarity, and we do so because the original motion doesn't adequately address the issues in aviation and the impacts that the crisis is having on workers and on climate change. Over the last few weeks, probably at least four times representatives of the aviation industry have appeared either before the COVID committee or the transport committee, and I've repeatedly heard their demands for increased state aid, for relaxing public health guidelines, and I've also been repeatedly told how safe airline travel is in the midst of pandemic. We know that since the crisis started, there's been huge hardship to workers in the aviation industry with massive job layoffs, force redundancies, pay cuts, reduced hours, and the wholesale tearing up of contracts, rights, and conditions. And it has been galling in the extreme to know that the very company, and the CEOs and CEOs loudly proclaiming their concern for workers are the same ones that are simultaneously putting the boot into them. The contempt that these companies have shown is breathtaking. And to give just two examples, Aer Lingus Management's concern for their workers could not even extend to filling out simple social welfare forms in a timely fashion, leaving many workers without any income for week after week. And meanwhile, Ryanair have to date used this crisis to force many to sign nine new contracts, and have sacked at least eight trade union activists across the European operation. In other companies, there have been reports of similar pay cuts, selective redundancies, etc. So I take the attitude of the CEO and management of these companies with a large pinch of salt when they demand for their state aid and help for their industry and their workers. Their demand seems to be, let's get back to normal and let's not make too much of the public health situation. These very companies that posted billions in profits just last year did not find any initiative or take any action to set up rapid testing at airports. Now we are told that we may have this soon. Ten months into the crisis and it is really incredible that we are now only doing what many other states and regions have been doing in terms of rapid testing. I do not believe that we can look to a model for aviation that simply says, let's get back to normal. Let's expand airports, build more runways and let's get people flying. The elephant in the room is climate change and that changes everything. We do need an aviation industry and connectivity, both as an island nation and regionally. But looking for a model of the free market and competition between dozens of airlines based on never ending expansion is lunacy. It is not sustainable and will not deliver in the long term for secure employment or for health and safety. It cannot be supported as we accelerate into a worsening climate crisis. We cannot somehow use clever accountancy trickery to ignore greenhouse gas emissions from aviation as if it does not reach the atmosphere in the same way as CO2. This is why the idea of a just transition becomes so important and why the treatment of this and other governments of the Bordnamona workers is so alarming. Just transition is what is needed for the aviation industry and we must see the role of the state as being parliament to that. I am alarmed that the state has seen it fit to appoint as a CEO of the Irish Aviation Authority, a former CEO of the Ryanair Group. It is like making the poacher the gamekeeper. I would like to ask the minister here today to address that. Why has the state appointed as head of an authority that is supposed to oversee the health and safety of the industry and consumers' rights, put the former CEO of Ryanair, who do not have a great reputation on either count, into the head of the Irish Aviation Authority. I leave the minister with that question. Thanks, Your чrados document. Thanks, your wife, thanks rigup hang on. You schön Siekommen Sieg U sempre poncho. I love to thank you. Guys, ma'am. No problem. Pardon. Do you.... Do you..... Go to church? Pantamu Yorzequeline P Hom gab... Vj. Do you.... Do you..... Holz... You know what? ...
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