An information resource for serving & former members of the Irish Army Air Corps suffering illness due to unprotected toxic chemical exposure in the workplace.
Seriously ill former members of the Air Corps are facing potentially “catastrophic” consequences for their health as a result of the State’s efforts to fight them ‘tooth and nail’ over the release of information that could aid their treatment, the Dáil heard yesterday.
Sinn Féin defence spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh yesterday said the CervicalCheck scandal has demonstrated a need for the State to disclose the medically sensitive information it has to affected members of the public — including the former Air Corps staff.
Mr Ó Snodaigh asked Taoiseach Leo Varadkar if the Government would release a report on working conditions in the Air Corps headquarters in Casement Aerodrome that it has withheld.
Mr Ó Snodaigh also highlighted one case in which the State Claims Agency is “fighting tooth and nail” against a High Court discovery order demanding the release of a list of chemicals used in the Air Corps hangars. “This is potentially catastrophic for some of those making claims and also for some who are not making claims,” said Mr Ó Snodaigh.
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
Five military personnel at the Casement Aerodrome have tested positive for listed drugs following a series of random tests.
Documents obtained by The Times under freedom of information legislation showed that just over 500 substance tests have been carried out at the base in Baldonnel, southwest of Dublin, since 2013. In each year since then, one person has tested positive.
No mention of the Cessna stolen by 2 officers and flown to Gormanston in order to avoid a mandatory drugs test. No mention either of the high ranking officers who covered it up.
TDs and senators are to visit the Air Corps headquarters, amid fears for the health and safety of staff at Casement Aerodrome.
The move follows revelations in the Irish Examiner about conditions for technicians working on aircraft at the base.
The Air Corps has now invited members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence, to see the changes it has implemented over the past year, following warnings from the State’s health watchdog.
Junior defence minister Paul Kehoe revealed details of the visit to the Committee.
“Under my instructions, the General Officer Commanding, GOC, Irish Air Corps, Brigadier General Seán Clancy, has invited the committee to visit the Air corps base and I ask that the chairman and the committee secretariat arrange that visit through my office,” he said.
The committee proposes to make the visit on March 27.
It is not clear whether the committee will meet with whistleblowers, or if it will discuss allegations, made through protected disclosures, with the Air Corps hierarchy.
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
A whistleblower’s warning that documents revealing unacceptable levels of chemical exposure in the Air Corps were deliberately destroyed was sent to the Department of Defence over a year before it looked for the documents — and discovered they are missing.
The Department of Defence only sought to find the documents after their alleged destruction was raised in the Dáil — more than 12 months after it received the whistleblower’s claim.
A protected disclosure sent to the then Minister of Defence Simon Coveney in December 2015 warned that a named senior member of the Air Corps destroyed reports, dating back to the 1990s, which raised concerns about the levels of toxic chemicals in workshops in Casement Aerodrome.
The same official was named in a subsequent disclosure by a second whistleblower who also alleged the documents were destroyed.
The years given by the whistleblower for the destroyed documents match those of inspection reports of Casement Aerodrome that the Department itself admits cannot be found.
When asked previously if there are plans to investigate the documents’ disappearance, junior defence minister Paul Kehoe has told the Dáil that he has been “advised by the military authorities that there are no plans to carry out an investigation into why these reports cannot be located.”
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he believes the courts should decide whether former Air Corps staff are suffering chronic illnesses due to chemical exposure.
Mr Varadkar made the comments yesterday in the Dáil where Sinn Féin Defence Spokesperson Aengus O’Snodaigh repeated calls for a health study of Air Corps members, similar to an analysis of Australian Air Force staff, which found technicians who worked with carcinogenic chemicals were at greater risk of illness.
Last year, the Irish Examiner revealed the State is facing a number of claims from former staff, and that whistleblowers had raised concerns about the safety of workers using chemicals at Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel.
“While I have absolutely no doubt that the serious ill-health suffered by some former members of the Air Corps is real, it has not been proven whether this array of illnesses could be caused by chemical exposure,” Mr Varadkar said.
“There is litigation in the courts, which are the best place to assess the evidence and see whether the allegations are supported by that evidence,” he said.
Mr O’Snodaigh said a survey is needed as the implications of widespread staff exposure to the chemicals used goes beyond the seven cases currently against the State. “We do not want to be here in 10 years’ time with a higher death toll, having failed to address this scandal,”he said.
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
The vast majority of Irish Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors are not currently engaged in legal action. For these serving and former personnel the Taoiseach is offering them no respite, not assistance and no hope.
Labour leader Brendan Howlin is not satisfied with the Government’s response to the Air Corps chemical exposure scandal, and has called for an external review of the allegations.
In the absence of military or government statistics on untimely deaths in the Irish Air Corps we created our own. We are happy to have these tested or even proven wrong by better statistics gathered by the state in a comprehensive, open and transparent manner. #WeAreNotStatisticians
The State is facing seven High Court claims from former Air Corps technicians, who say they suffer chronic illnesses due to exposure to toxic chemicals while they were cleaning and servicing aircraft.
A number of whistleblowers have made protected disclosures about working conditions in Air Corps headquarters at Casement Aerodrome. The Health and Safety Authority subsequently investigated, and threatened legal action, unless the Defence Forces improved worker safety.
Mr Howlin raised the issue in the Dáil last month, and has since received correspondence from the Government.
“I’ve raised it with the Taoiseach directly and I’ve gotten a two-page response from the minister with responsibility for defence, and I’m not satisfied,” Mr Howlin said. “There needs to be at least an expert-review panel set up to look into this in some detail.”
However, Mr Howlin did not call for a full commission of investigation, but said that the findings of an external review should determine whether such a process is necessary.
“Whether a full tribunal of investigation is required remains to be seen, but the first step to that is to have an external, expert review, and that needs to happen immediately, and I certainly will be pressing for that,” he said.
This review should include a health study of Air Corps members past and present to determine if they have a higher prevalence of chronic conditions compared to the general public, he said.
“That would have to be a critical part of the review, because, once the fears are there, they have to be empirically checked out,” Mr Howlin said.
“They are either fact or not fact. There’s no point in people either dismissing them, or saying it’s a fact. We need to have external, independent, authoritative decisions on these matters.”
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
A NEW PROTECTED disclosure has been sent to Defence Minister Paul Kehoe detailing a number of “verified deaths” of those allegedly affected by the Air Corps chemical scandal.
It’s the contention of a number of Air Corps members, who have since retired, that the effects of the chemicals they handled as part of their work contributed to dozens of workers at the Baldonnel Airfield becoming ill.
In a protected disclosure made by one of the workers last year, it has also been alleged that the partners of male members of the force suffered serious fertility issues and a number of miscarriages. Other children, according to the previous protected disclosure, are living with life-changing illnesses and, in some cases, have died.
But a new disclosure, submitted last week, claims that the number of untimely deaths from the scandal has “grown exponentially”.
The State is facing a further High Court action from a former member of the Defence Forces allegedly suffering chronic ill-health due to exposure to chemicals in the Air Corps.
The disclosure of a seventh case came in the Dáil yesterday, where opposition politicians said the Government’s response to a growing health scandal over the past year was like ‘Groundhog Day’ in its repetition and inaction.
Last year, the Irish Examiner revealed six former Defence Forces members were suing the State over chronic health issues. A medical expert had advised that the health complaints were as a result of working conditions at Casement Aerodrome.
This newspaper also revealed how a number of whistleblowers had warned the Government that the Air Corps’ management of chemical exposure was inadequate, a claim vindicated after an inspection by the Health and Safety Authority.
Junior Defence Minister Paul Kehoe yesterday confirmed a seventh case. He denied claims there had been a cover-up within the Defence Forces to hide the extent of its knowledge of conditions in Baldonnell Aerodrome.
“The Minister of State seems, somehow, to be suggesting that his inaction is to serve the interests of those affected,” said Fianna Fáil defence spokeswoman Lisa Chambers.
“Minister, this particular issue is a little bit like Groundhog Day; we continue to ask questions, myself and others, and we continue to get the same stock response.
Sinn Féin defence spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh called for a health survey of Air Corps members to determine whether they are more at risk of serious illness.
“All the O’Toole report dealt with was whether the procedures were in place to deal with whistleblowers. This is not about the whistleblowers or the cases before the courts at the moment,” he said.
“The State is fighting them tooth and nail and I think it is on the losing side. If those are set aside, there are quite a number of other members who gave service to this State, through the Air Corps, who are suffering catastrophic health problems.
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
In a series of articles across 2017, the Irish Examiner revealed serious concerns about the working environment within the Air Corps — matters that have seen allegations of a deliberate cover-up, of victimisation of whistleblowers, and of a lackadaisical attitude towards health and safety that has put lives at risk, writes Joe Leogue.
While the stories broken by this newspaper since January have posed a myriad of questions for the State and the Defence Forces, the issues have one common controversy running throughout.
Have technicians within the Air Corps developed cancer, neurological problems, and other chronic conditions as a result of unnecessary exposure to toxic chemicals during their time at Casement Aerodrome?
WARNING – Very long article reviewing the following topics.
The Court Cases
The Whistleblowers
The Health Watchdog Inspections – Vindication for the Whistleblowers
The Internal Report
The Missing Reports – And allegations of a Cover-Up
The Independent Review
The International Precedents
The Political Reaction
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
An official tasked with reviewing whistle-blower allegations of chemical exposure within the Air Corps was not given access to the Defence Forces’ own report on the claims, the Government has confirmed.
Six former Air Corps staff are suing the State, claiming their exposure to chemicals while in the Defence Forces caused cancers and other chronic illnesses they now suffer.
Meanwhile, three whistleblowers came forward to allege health and safety mismanagement within the Air Corps, in the years up to 2016. A subsequent inspection by the Health and Safety Authority confirmed many of the complaints outlined in the whistleblowers’ protected disclosures.
A Freedom of Information request earlier this year from Deputy Aengus O’Snodaigh had revealed Junior Defence Minister Paul Kehoe had been given a copy of a report entitled “Chemical Exposure Report (1994-2005)”.
The Department of Defence, meanwhile, tasked former civil servant Christopher O’Toole with reviewing claims from three whistleblowers who alleged the health of dozens of Air Corps staff may have been seriously compromised by exposure to chemicals used to clean and service aircraft.
In his report, however, Mr O’Toole concluded the terms of reference he was given had been ‘impractical’, and noted that appropriate records to demonstrate the Air Corps complied with health and safety regulations “are not readily available”.
This week, the Sinn Féin TD subsequently asked Mr Kehoe whether Mr O’Toole was provided with a copy of the “Chemical Exposure Report (1994-2005)”.
Mr Kehoe said it would not have been “appropriate” to give the report to Mr O’Toole. “As the report is subject to legal privilege, it was not appropriate to make it available to the independent reviewer,” the minister said.
Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…
