Month: January 2020

Protestors encourage voters not to give Paul Kehoe any preference votes

Minister with Responsibility for Defence Paul Kehoe is being targeted by former members of the Defence Forces who are trying to encourage voters in the forthcoming General Election not to vote for him.

The former Fine Gael chief whip has been a Fine Gael TD for County Wexford since he was first elected to the Dáil in May 2002 and a Minister of State for Defence since 2016.

In the last election, he secured a seat in the Dáil by beating his nearest rival Sinn Féin’s Johnny Mythen by just 52 votes.

Protestors are targeting his constituency offices and those of his party colleagues Michael D’Arcy.

They want to encourage people not to give Deputy Kehoe any preference votes, which helped get him elected the last time round.

The protesters are former members of the Air Corps who belong to the Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors (ACCAS) who claim they suffer illnesses due to their exposure to toxic chemicals while working for the Air Corps.

According to the group, Minister Kehoe has done little or nothing to help them get the medical support and health screening services they want.

Read full article on Irish Examiner website below…

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Please view the honourable & fair demands of
Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors  here.

Delay – Deny – Die

Do not give Paul Kehoe ANY preference in #GE2020

The Minister for Defence was informed  about ongoing unprotected toxic chemical exposures at Baldonnel in 2015 via numerous Protected Disclosures.

At the time the minister was warned that 8 men may have suffered untimely deaths due to chemical exposure.

After further research Kehoe was informed in 2018 that we had discovered a further 48 untimely deaths bringing the total to 56.

As of now January 2020 we have records of 77 untimely deaths of Irish Air Corps personnel. Some of these men died by their own hands and could have been saved if Kehoe intervened but he chose to do nothing.  Doing nothing meant that men continued to die unnecessarily.

A HSA investigation threatened legal action in 2016 unless the Air Corps complied with the Safety, Health and Welfare At Work Act, 1989 (updated 2005).

A sham “independent third party”  investigation by a retired barrister from the office of the Attorney General which was ordered by Kehoe found no evidence that the Air Corps had implemented any chemical health and safety prior to whistleblowers making complaints to the minster and the HSA. Kehoe could have sent in a chemical expert, Kehoe could have sent in a medical expert but Kehoe decided to send in a government barrister and pretended he was an independent third party.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing by the Air Corps Minister Kehoe never once expressed concern for former members of the service and never sought to ascertain the true health state of exposed serving and former personnel.

KEHOE MUST GO – KEHOE HAS BLOOD ON HIS HANDS

  • 77 verified deaths have occurred in total since 1980 
  • 64 of these deaths have occurred since 2000
  • 40 of these deaths have occurred since 2010
Either the rate of death is accelerating or we are missing many deaths from previous decades or possibly both.
 

3 most significant causes of death

  • Approximately a third of deaths are from  cancer
  • Approximately a third of deaths are cardiac related
  • Approximately a fifth of deaths are from suicide
*We record untimely as dying at or before age 66 (civilian pension age), average age of death is 50 years. We are counting deaths from medical reasons & suicide, we are not counting accidental deaths or murder.