Conor D McGuinness: Rejects threats over 2,000-hour safety limit
Conor D McGuinness strongly rejected any attempt by Bristow, the IAA or the Minister to discipline crew who refuse to work above the 2,000-hour annual limit, framing the dispute as a matter of safety for personnel and the public. He urged unions IALPA and FORSA to specify how many additional pilots and technical crew would be required to maintain full search and rescue cover within that limit.
McGuinness told the committee he would have "absolutely no truck" with employers or officials who sought to punish members for standing by the 2,000-hour cap. He emphasised the issue is about safety of personnel and ensuring an adequate, safe and responsive search and rescue service for the people of Ireland.
He cited past tragedies, including incidents in Counties Mayo and Waterford, to underline the stakes and said threats held over union members were "absolutely repugnant". He warned the undermining of a culture of safety and repeated checks before flight could damage morale and wellbeing.
McGuinness described 2,000 hours as reasonable - equivalent to eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks with minimum statutory leave. He said current crewing is around nine pilots per base but estimated an additional two to three pilots per base, plus about two technical crew per base, would likely be needed if prior factorisation arrangements do not apply.
He referenced A&O 58, noting it provides for factoring but does not mandate it, and said nothing prevents an operator from recording errors properly and crewing bases appropriately. He characterised the shortfall as a commercial decision by the operator rather than an insolvable problem and said the Minister and the IEA could provide the necessary clarity or intervention.
McGuinness asked IALPA and FORSA to state how many additional personnel would be required to keep the full level of service within the 2,000-hour limit, and called for time to hear their answers. He framed the issue as both solvable and urgent to protect safety, recruitment, retention and the sustainability of the service.
Main position
McGuinness told the committee he would have "absolutely no truck" with employers or officials who sought to punish members for standing by the 2,000-hour cap. He emphasised the issue is about safety of personnel and ensuring an adequate, safe and responsive search and rescue service for the people of Ireland.
Safety concerns and past incidents
He cited past tragedies, including incidents in Counties Mayo and Waterford, to underline the stakes and said threats held over union members were "absolutely repugnant". He warned the undermining of a culture of safety and repeated checks before flight could damage morale and wellbeing.
Crewing numbers and hours
McGuinness described 2,000 hours as reasonable - equivalent to eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks with minimum statutory leave. He said current crewing is around nine pilots per base but estimated an additional two to three pilots per base, plus about two technical crew per base, would likely be needed if prior factorisation arrangements do not apply.
Legal and operational framework
He referenced A&O 58, noting it provides for factoring but does not mandate it, and said nothing prevents an operator from recording errors properly and crewing bases appropriately. He characterised the shortfall as a commercial decision by the operator rather than an insolvable problem and said the Minister and the IEA could provide the necessary clarity or intervention.
Demands on unions and next steps
McGuinness asked IALPA and FORSA to state how many additional personnel would be required to keep the full level of service within the 2,000-hour limit, and called for time to hear their answers. He framed the issue as both solvable and urgent to protect safety, recruitment, retention and the sustainability of the service.
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Transcript
I just want to reiterate that I absolutely reject any attempt by Bristow as an employer or by the government, the IAA or the Minister, as people with responsibility who would oversee this, that any member, be it pilot or technical personnel, will be subject to any disciplinary action for making a stand and saying that they will not work a minute over the 2,000 hours annual limit. This is about safety. It's about safety of the personnel. It's about ensuring that we don't have tragedies like we've seen in the past, including in Counties Mayo and Waterford, and it is about ensuring that the people of Ireland, those of us who live along the coastline, but the whole people of Ireland can avail of an adequate, safe and responsive search and rescue service. So I just want to make that extremely clear that I'll have absolutely no truck and I completely reject any attempt by Bristow as an employer or anybody else to stand over anything like that. That threat that's held over your members of both IALPA and force is absolutely repugnant and shouldn't be tolerated. And in one way, I wish that you were in before us, ahead of Bristow, so I could put that to them as forcefully as I'm saying it now. I'm extremely worried about a set of professionals, highly trained, highly skilled, years of experience, obviously very dedicated to your work, not only being threatened, but the impact on your culture, where your culture of service, but also your culture of safety, ensuring that everything is right, checking and checking again, working out your details before taking to the skies, that that culture is being undermined, that you're being asked to undermine your own culture. You're being asked to do things that are unsafe. I don't think that's good. I don't think it bodes well for the service. It's obviously having an impact on personnel in terms of your well-being and your morale. I also fear that that will have a knock-in impact on recruitment and retention and the availability of the service to be sustainable and to survive, and all because a commercial operator effectively doesn't want to recruit sufficient staff. I'd be interested, actually, in knowing and hearing from both IALPA and FORSA how many additional personnel in both sections you think it would take for Bristow to be able to provide the full level of service within the 2,000-hour limit. You just need to give them time to answer the question. Yeah, and then, finally, I just think it's important for people listening and people watching that 2,000 hours is not unreasonable. If one was to work eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks of the year, that's 2,000 hours. That would be with absolute minimum two-week statutory leave. That's what we're talking about here, and we're talking about people who are flying platforms into the air to conduct rescues at sea. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for your indulgence. So, in terms of, at the moment, the crewing is around nine pilots per base. In terms of if the factors, and, again, the problem is they ran with nine pilots per base on the previous contract as well, but those pilots could go home and they could sleep in their own bed, and then that was factorised under the legislation. Now those nine pilots are in the workplace, so it can't be factorised as per 0.58, which means that the headcount needs to increase, and you're probably looking at another two to three pilots per base, should they not factorise as they would have done previously. And, Debbie, just from the technical crew perspective, we estimate approximately two per base, which would be sufficient. But also noting as well, A&O 58 actually provides for the provision of factoring. It doesn't mandate it. I mean, there's nothing, absolutely nothing stopping the operator from bringing in a regime of recording the errors properly and crewing the bases properly for both pilots and technical crew. But it appears to be just a straightforward commercial decision to do so. And notwithstanding the fact that we do have agreements with them, we do, but this still remains an issue, and it is something which is absolutely soluble in our view. It is something that the Minister can intervene with, and the IEA can provide the clarity required. Thank you, Eugene. Thank you.