A campaigner who lost her brother in a work accident broke down as she told MSPs of the difficulties bereaved families face in getting answers.

Louise Taggart told Holyrood's Justice Committee that the wait some relatives face for a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) is "wholly unacceptable".

She broke down in tears as she related the circumstances surrounding the death of her brother Michael Adamson, 26, who was electrocuted while at work in 2005.

Ms Taggart was giving evidence as the committee began its scrutiny of the Scottish Government's Inquiries into Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths etc (Scotland) Bill.

The legislation seeks to update, expand and improve the FAI system by implementing most of the recommendations made in a 2009 review by retired senior judge Lord Cullen.

Ms Taggart is a founder member of the campaign group Families Against Corporate Killers, set up to stop workers being killed in preventable incidents.

The group wants time limits for holding FAIs and calls for a review of the practice of inquiries taking place after criminal proceedings.

Lord Cullen told the committee that long delays for FAIs to take place were "very dismaying and very, very unfortunate".

He said it would "not be wise" to have an FAI start before the conclusion of any criminal proceedings but proposed an early hearing to give more information to families in the interim.

Ms Taggart said she was not convinced that an early hearing would give families as much information as they needed.

She told MSPs: "We can wait up to four years for an FAI to kick off.

"We have instances of families having had to wait seven years before they find out that an FAI isn't then going to take place.

"These delays of seven, six years are wholly unacceptable, so families need more answers more quickly, and it needs to be more than just an update on progress as to where we're at.

"It needs to be answers as to 'how has my relative died, why has my relative died?'"

The Bill would require a response from anyone made the subject of a recommendation by a sheriff at the end of an FAI.

It would also allow for FAIs to be held into the deaths of Scots abroad where the body is repatriated, a measure campaigned for by Julie Love.

She set up charity Death Abroad You're Not Alone after her son Colin, 23, died in a swimming accident in Venezuela in 2009.

Ms Love told the committee: "For anybody in the future going to that same area the same thing could happen, and it did happen again and again, and it's still happening today.

"For me the most important thing is recommendations when someone dies abroad.

"I know that they will not always carry out these recommendation but at least that process would be in place."

The committee also heard from retired RAF Flight Lieutenant James Jones, who has called for an FAI into the 2012 crash between two RAF Tornado jets over the Moray Firth in which airmen Hywel Poole, Samuel Bailey and Adam Sanders died.

The Crown Office announced in March that an FAI would not be held as it ''could not better and would only repeat'' the service inquiry already carried out by the Military Aviation Authority (MAA).

Mr Jones told the committee he was "bitterly disappointed" by the decision.

He said: "In carrying out the investigation there was no independent judge present, there was no cross-examination.

"It was, by their own definition, an internal investigation. Families weren't involved, no-one was allowed to put forward any questions.

"Now that is what has been presented to the procurator fiscal and the Crown Office, and they said, 'oh, this will do instead of an FAI'. I don't think it will do.

"This inquiry does not replace a proper inquiry in the public domain. There is no input to that inquiry.

"As Lord Cullen says, FAIs are carried out in the public interest - the public interest has not been satisfied in this case."

Mr Jones told MSPs he had since corresponded with the president of the MAA's service inquiry.

He said: "Even the president of the service inquiry, who I've been in touch with, has said, 'look there ware certain lines of interrogation that I wanted to go down but I was prevented, and also I don't think my report is complete'.

"Since the FAI was rejected, he's written to me and said 'it makes a nonsense of one of my recommendations, which was we really didn't have enough skills to go the full way, I expected another inquiry to take place'."