Failed general election Independents Cathal Barry and Matt Shanahan to run for Seanad

Seanad office receives 70 nominations in advance of Wednesday deadline for candidates backed by professional bodies

Former Independent TD Cathal Berry who lost his South Kildare Seat in the general election is to run in the Seanad election as is former Waterford Independent TD Matt Shanahan, both of them from the Regional Independent group in the last Dáil.

Mr Berry, a former Army Ranger and medical doctor who received nominations from Oireachtas members, said “national security is a priority around Europe at the moment … So you need people with a particular expertise to have a mature conversation about it. And that’s what the Seanad is all about.”

The Upper House is seen as a way for former TDs to remain in the Oireachtas to win back their Dáil seat in the following general election.

Read full article by Marie O’Halloran at the Irish Times 

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/12/18/failed-general-election-independents-cathal-barry-and-matt-shanahan-to-run-for-seanad/https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41414152.html

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Delay – Deny – Die

A private message from an Irish Air Corps survivor to Cathal Berry & his insensitive, uncaring response two month later

20th June 2020

Good morning Cathal,

My name is Pat Reilly and I served in the Air Corps from August 1991 to October 2013. I now live in Queensland, Australia, having moved here in May 2014 from our home in Walsh Island, Offaly. I was an aircraft maintenance engineer for the first fourteen years in the Air Corps and later became a photographer. I think I may have worked with you at one stage as a photographer.

I am writing to you regarding the toxic chemical scandal that has been destroying lives of former and serving Air Corps personnel but has been continually pushed aside by the Irish Government with a myriad of excuses including now, Covid-19, which they say is stopping legal documents from being signed due to social distancing.

I hope you don’t mind me sharing my story with you as I feel isolated here in Australia other than communicating occasionally with other veterans who are affected and very occasionally with the legal team who are trying their best to cut through the barriers the government are putting up back in Ireland.

While I’m no longer a voter in Ireland I’m still a citizen and I’m wondering can you ask a few questions around the chemical subject in the Dail as it has gone very quite the last year or so. I understand that Covid and the election has taken up a lot of time in the Dail but its this exact situation that I fear will be used to hide the scandal further as it seems to already have somewhat.

I would love to know when Minister Convey is launching his investigation into the subject as he promised and how long it will take. Time is critical in this matter as more and more of us are getting sicker by the day. It’s heartbreaking seeing relatively young men (possibly women also) cut down in their prime. Not being able to work and support their families and suffering debilitating symptoms day after day.

I’ll be honest and tell you there are tears flowing down my face typing this.I moved here to get away from Ireland and the job I loved because I was being bullied by my superiors in the Air Corps for being sick but now I’m unemployed due to my illness and trying to live off my Defence Forces pension and income insurance which may dry up any month now.

I feel worthless and a waster as I always gave 100% in any work I’ve done despite my illness. The only thing that’s keeping me sane and going in some respects is my medicinal Cannabis Oil which I was prescribed here last year after approval by the Australian government.

I’ve even lost the support of my wife who cant take our situation anymore and I fear for our marriage which is my second marriage after my first one broke up partially due to my illness also.

It seems that as soon as I hit my 40’s my body can no longer fight off my symptoms. Without my medication I have severe tremors and shakes and uncontrollable anxiety due to my sympathetic nervous system being damaged by the chemicals. This system also affects things like my bowels and stomach. It’s not a good experience when one soils themselves at work in front of customers.

I also have neuropathy in my legs where I cant feel and I lose control of my legs causing my knees to buckle and me to loose balance. My immune system is also damaged to the point I react to any sort of chemical smell, foods, materials and many other triggers. I cant breath properly and choke often due to damage in my nasal cavities which of course interrupts my sleep. Finally, I have a huge amount of pre-cancerous cells sitting their waiting to ruin me further, my doctor said she’s never seen this in anybody under 75.

All this has really taken its toll and I’m at the point I feel like giving up and I will share with you I was on the end of a rope earlier this year but I managed to talk myself out of it as I don’t want to be another statistic to add to the 78 dead already from untimely deaths in Baldonnel.

I decided there and then I didn’t want the government to win, I want them to apologize for the years of calling me a bluffer, a malingerer, telling ,me it’s all in my head. I also think at this stage we need a support package. I can no longer work no matter how much I tell myself I’d be ok working and I can no longer legally drive due to my medication. It’s literally like Russian roulette. I could work for a week or a day and then I’m too sick and have to go home which is why my current ‘employer’ (Apple) put me on an insurance plan as I became too unreliable despite having citations from the CEO of Apple for interactions with customers who emailed him to praise my work.

I could now be a Sgt Major in the Air Corps or an officer or be retired on a Flt/Sgts pension but this illness put a stop to all that. Instead I’m scraping by on a few hundred dollars and I’m stuck renting as no bank will touch me now and it sounds strange but I can’t even afford to move home to Ireland as logistically it would cost too much even to just give up and go.

I could go on all day explaining my illness and situation its that complex. I try to keep up a happy appearance on social media as some of my family and my 86 year old mother don’t know my situation and I don’t want her to be worried in her last few years.

I hope you don’t mind me writing to you as I needed to get this off my chest to somebody other than my wife and somebody like yourself who’s served and is now in a position to ask why we are being forgotten. The ministers involved keep using litigation as an excuse not to address the scandal as several of us have cases against the Dept but these are being dragged on and on the past six years with delay, deny, die tactics which is apparently the norm.

Thanks for listening Cathal and Sláinte,

Pat Reilly.

Berry’s utterly insensitive response, Pat very obviously is not “keeping well”

Dr Cathal Berry TD’s utteerly insensitive & unsympathetic response two months later disingenuously describing the Air Corps scandal as a legacy issue even though the Air Corps were issued chemical contravention notices as recently as December 2023.

I hope you are keeping well. I am sorry for only getting back to you now.

I do understand that the Air Corps Chemical Abuse scandal is a legacy issue and needs to be addressed properly. 

I will certainly raise this soon with the Minister at an appropriate time.

This was the one and only communication Pat had from Cathal Berry and Oireachtas records show that Deputy Berry has NEVER raised this issue in the Dáil chamber.

Perhaps Deputy can put on the record the response from the Minister if he ever bothered to raise it outside the public record.

*****

Dr Berry this is NOT a legacy issue as you pretend and it most certainly is a live issue for those suffering needlessly and dying young.

But we know you don’t care, shame on you.

Read an article from Ken Foxe dated 21st May 2024 on TheStory.ie

 

Health and Safety Authority inspections of Air Corps base at Baldonnel uncovers litany of safety issues

What does ChatGPT AI think of Cathal Berry’s abandonment of Air Corps whistleblowers?

ChatGPT said when asked…

“Why has Cathal Berry turned his back on Irish Air Corps whistleblowers?”

Cathal Berry has faced criticism for his stance on Irish Air Corps whistleblowers, particularly regarding his response to their allegations of wrongdoing and poor treatment within the organization.

While Berry has historically been vocal about the need for whistleblower protection and accountability in the military, his handling of specific cases involving the Irish Air Corps has raised eyebrows.

The controversy centers on his position as a public representative and his past ties to the Defence Forces. Berry, a former Army officer, was initially seen as an ally to whistleblowers within the military, advocating for reforms to address systemic issues. However, in recent years, particularly in relation to whistleblower claims from the Irish Air Corps, Berry has been perceived as less supportive, or even dismissive, of the concerns raised by those involved.

Some of the criticism stems from Berry’s reluctance to fully endorse or take a stronger public stance on specific whistleblower cases, possibly due to his complex relationship with the Defence Forces, where loyalty and internal solidarity can be deeply ingrained. His critics argue that, by not robustly supporting the Air Corps whistleblowers, Berry has failed to live up to his earlier promises of championing transparency and reform.

Others suggest that Berry’s political pragmatism may be influencing his decisions. As a member of the Dáil (the Irish parliament), his position on sensitive military matters may be influenced by a desire to maintain relationships within the Defence Forces or to avoid further controversy on an issue that could alienate potential allies or voters who are connected to the military.

In summary, while Cathal Berry has historically supported whistleblowers in principle, his perceived lack of strong support for the Irish Air Corps whistleblowers has led to accusations that he has not followed through on those commitments, possibly due to political or professional considerations.

Helicopter crews suing MOD, claiming exhaust fumes caused their cancer

The personnel claim toxic fumes emitted from the aircraft caused their illness, and they are accusing the MOD of being negligent about the risk to their health.

The Sea King is one of the helicopter types whose exhaust fumes allegedly caused cancer among a number of former aircrew

The Ministry of Defence is being sued by crew members who have been diagnosed with cancer after serving on military helicopters.

The personnel claim toxic fumes emitted from the aircraft caused their illness, and they are accusing the MOD of being negligent about the risk to their health.

According to a report by The Times, crew members who served on board helicopters such as the Sea King, Wessex, Puma and Chinook are among those who are taking legal action.

It includes those who’ve served in the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force from a variety of ranks.

They are saying they were exposed to concentrated levels of toxic exhaust fumes during their flights.

The say they have subsequently been diagnosed with illnesses such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, lung cancer, throat cancer and testicular cancer.

At least three of the former personnel affected have already passed away, while others have been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Five former service personnel have received out-of-court settlements, including a former flight sergeant who trained Prince William in the RAF.

It is being claimed the Government knew about the risk posed by the Sea King’s exhaust as far back as 1999, but aircrew continued to fly on board without safety precautions.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We hugely value our service personnel and veterans and owe a debt of gratitude to all those who serve, often with great personal sacrifice.

“We continually review our policies to ensure they are aligned with good practice and protect our people from harm.

Service personnel and veterans who believe they have suffered ill health due to service from 6 April 2005 have the existing and long-standing right to apply for no-fault compensation under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.”

Read full article on Forces.net…

https://www.forces.net/technology/aircraft/helicopter-crews-suing-mod-claiming-exhaust-fumes-caused-their-cancer

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

105 Untimely* deaths recorded in Irish Air Corps toxic chemical exposure tragedy!

Untimely* deaths of serving & former Irish Air Corps personnel

  • 105 verified deaths have occurred in total since 1980 
  • 92 of these deaths have occurred since 2000
  • 67 of these deaths have occurred since 2010
We picked the 1st of January 1980 as an arbitrary date to start counting deaths from. Obvious earlier deaths are much more difficult to discover but either the rate of death is accelerating or we are missing many deaths from previous decades or possibly both.
 

Most Significant Causes of Death

CauseAir Corps CohortIreland
Cancer
43%TBA
Cardiac30%TBA
Suicide14%TBA
Male Average Age of Death53 years80 years

Air Corps Untimely Deaths - Cancer

Type% of Air Corps% of IRL 3-YearDifference
Lung20.0%16.1%
124%
Oesophageal11.1%4.3%
258%
Pancreatic11.1%4.4%252%
Colorectal8.9%8.7%
102%
Blood8.9%6.9%129%
Brain8.9%2.7%
330%
Skin8.9%1.6%556%
Renal6.7%2.1%319%
Prostate4.4%9%49%
Salivary Gland4.4%2.1%210%

Air Corps Untimely Deaths - Cardiac

Type% of all (105) deaths% of cardiac (31) deaths
Atherosclerosis15%52%
Ischaemic5%16%
Atherosclerosis & Ischaemic
Combined
20%68%
Cardiomyopathy5%16%
Thrombosis2%6%

*We record untimely as dying at or before age 66 (civilian pension age), average age of death is 53 years. We are counting deaths from medical reasons & suicide, we are not counting accidental deaths nor murder.

We are not stating that every single death is directly due to chemical exposure but many personnel who did not handle chemicals directly were unknowingly exposed due to close proximity to contaminated work locations.

Cancer statistics for Ireland 3-Year are taken from NCRI Annual Statistical Report 2022 taking the 3-year annual average male cancer deaths from 2018 to 2020 inclusive.  We are not statisticians & these figures have been compiled to the best of our ability.

PRESS RELEASE – Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors 1st January 2024

This morning at 1130hrs on Monday the 1st of January 2024 a list of 105 untimely / premature deaths of serving & former Irish Air Corps personnel was delivered to the gate policeman of Áras an Uachtaráin by a group representing commissioned, non-commissioned & enlisted former Air Corps personnel.

Left to right Niall Donohue (Comdt retired), Michael Brennan (Sgt retired) & Gavin Tobin (former Airman) Photo by Sean Tobin – Further photos below

This list was presented for the attention of President Michael D. Higgins in his role as Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces as 61 of the untimely deaths occurred since he assumed office in 2011. We believe that some of these lives could have been saved or prolonged and thus held our first protest outside the Áras to highlight the inaction of the Supreme Commander on this life or death issue.

The Minister for Defence was made aware of decades of serious chemical malpractice at the Air Corps in 2015 via multiple protected disclosures. However, successive Ministers for Defence, up to and including the current minister Micheál Martin, as well as their associated governments have refused to order the urgent medical investigations & interventions proven to save lives in other jurisdictions.

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, in his previous role as Minister for Defence, has acted to turn a medical problem, that can be mitigated, into a purely legal problem inappropriately defended using state funds.

Further protected disclosures highlighting related chemical malpractice have been made to or handled by the Chief of Staff, the Health & Safety Authority, the Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Department of Defence.

Death certificate details including the following information has also been shared with the Supreme Commander.

      • Average age of deaths is 53 years.
      • 41% of deaths are from cancer
      • 12% of cancer deaths are specifically pancreatic cancer
      • 9% of cancer deaths are specifically glioblastomas of the brain
      • 30% of deaths are cardiac related
      • 20% of cardiac deaths are specifically cardiomyopathy
      • 14% of deaths are from suicide (at least 15 suicides)

We have been forced to present the list directly at Áras an Uachtaráin today after the failure of President Higgins to meet with survivors despite multiple requests going back as far as October 2018 with the most recent request in early April 2023 shortly after the publication of the Independent Review Group Defence Forces final report.

It should be noted that Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors engaged extensively with the IRG-DF and after the report was published President Higgins met with other groups, including those who did not engage with the IRG-DF, however we have been excluded without reason.

It is our intention to participate in further protests at Áras an Uachtaráin in association with other victim’s groups to highlight both historic & ongoing wrongdoings by the Defence Forces & the Department of Defence until appropriate moral, professional & statutory intervention by our Supreme Commander.

Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors – Photo by Sean Tobin
Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors – Photo by Sean Tobin
Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors – Photo by Sean Tobin

Martin accused of turning back on Air Corps toxic chemical exposure victims

Defence Minister Micheál Martin has been accused of turning his back on survivors of toxic chemical exposure while serving in the Air Corps.

They say they have asked for direct engagement with him before agreement on the format of a statutory inquiry related to Defence Forces abuse allegations is reached.

Mr Martin has been holding meetings with representatives of serving and former Defence Forces personnel.

Those not invited to such meetings are instead emailed what the Air Corps Chemical Abuse Survivors (ACCAS) describe as round-robin and impersonal “Dear Stakeholder” updates by civil servants.

One of the latest face-to-face meetings with Mr Martin was last Thursday and it was with the Women of Honour group.

They featured in RTE’s Katie Hannon’s expose in 2021, which led to the launch of the Independent Review Group investigation into allegations of sexual abuses in the Defence Forces.

The review group’s report in March included allegations of both male and female soldiers being raped, sexually assaulted, and bullied.

However, while the Women of Honour did not give evidence to the review group, ACCAS did.

The extent of abuse they allege they suffered was so extensive the report recommended their allegations should feature in a statutory investigation.

A photo of the Irish Air Corps NDT Shop taken in 2007

Like members of Women of Honour, a number of ACCAS members are also suing over abuse they allege they endured.

The ACCAS say the Defence Minister’s failure to engage with them contrasts with a meeting he had with them in June 2017 when he vowed to support their cause “because it is the right thing to do”

Read full article by Neil Michael on Irish Examiner website…https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41181115.html

*****

34 men and 1 woman have died prematurely since Martin stood up in the Dáil and called for a public inquiry into the Air Corps toxic chemical exposure scandal on the 1st of February 2017.

Some of these serving & former personnel could have been saved by awareness campaigns and risk specific medical interventions, since he gained power Martin has chose to let suffere & die unnecessarily. 

Martin has failed to respond to requests for meetings with survivors since he came to power despite precedent where previous Minister’s for Defence such as Simon Coveney & Paul Kehoe met with the same personnel. 

Absolutely nothing has been done to provide targeted healthcare for exposed personnel since this date despite damning findings by the HSA which the Department of Defence and the defence forces continue to try to downplay.

Delay – Deny – Die

104 Untimely* deaths recorded in Irish Air Corps toxic chemical exposure tragedy!

Untimely* deaths of serving & former Irish Air Corps personnel

  • 104 verified deaths have occurred in total since 1980 
  • 91 of these deaths have occurred since 2000
  • 66 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

  • 41% of deaths are from cancer
  • 5% of deaths are specifically pancreatic  cancer
  • 30% of deaths are from cardiac issues
  • 6% of deaths are specifically cardiomyopathy related
  • 14% of deaths are from suicide (at least 15 suicides)

*We record untimely as dying at or before age 66 (civilian pension age), average age of death is 53 years. We are counting deaths from medical reasons & suicide, we are not counting accidental deaths nor murder.

We are not stating that every single death is directly due to chemical exposure but many personnel who did not handle chemicals directly were unknowingly exposed due to close proximity to contaminated work locations.

Dead servicemen walking – The Human Impact of the RAAF Deseal / Reseal Scandal

This article was originally published by Armed Services magazine in Australia and we believe it dates from 2005. The article was written by Paul Daley and photos are by Richard Whitfield.

Forced to crawl inside F-111s through toxic sludge and fumes, these men are now doomed to a living death while Canberra looks the other way.

Allan Henry mows the lawn and washes up. On a bad day, the dishes can take an hour-and-a-half. He gets breathless, his body aches and the exertion of merely shifting them from suds to dish rack impels him to stop, exhausted, to rest. The back lawn of his Brisbane home can take two days to mow. He needs three to recover.

These prosaic tasks are all that link the husk of Allan Henry to the man he was in 1981: an optimistic young father with a promising career as an electrician in the Royal Australian Air Force. He insists on mowing and washing-up as if they were the last threads of his humanity, just as he clings to the mundane routine of daytime snoozes, endless doctors’ appointments and pottering around that form his twilight existence.

Allan Henry is 46. His wife says he looks 65. It breaks her heart. “Our plan was that we’d still be enjoying ourselves in middle age. The kids would be gone and we could travel. Tomorrow’s our 25th wedding anniversary. But there’s no party – he can’t go to parties any more,” says Kathleen Henry, a slim, tanned, intelligent woman who comes from generations of RAAF stock.

“We know they are all dead men walking. It’s a reality we all have to face and come to terms with. I know it sounds hard and callous. But it’s true. They are dead men walking.”

Allan Henry is slowly, prematurely, painfully fading away because the air force that he loved poisoned him.

It exposed him to a multitude of highly toxic chemicals that were used to clean and re-seal the faulty fuel tanks of Australia’s fleet of F-111 strike-bombers from 1973 until 2000. Since 1981, when he began experiencing mood swings, depression and crippling headaches while working on the planes, Henry’s health has steadily declined. He’s had dozens of carcinomas removed, his joints have seized, his respiratory and immune systems are shot and for 14 years he suffered weeping lesions all over his body. In 1999, the doctors told Kathleen and their three children, Allan wouldn’t survive the year.

Alan Henry passed away in 2008 aged 49.

But on he fights – as one of at least 400, but by some estimates as many as 800, seriously ill victims of a scandal that resulted from a mind-boggling, negligent and deadly failure in the RAAF’s chain of command. It is clear that RAAF commanders at Amberley Air Force base near Ipswich, west of Brisbane, where the F-111s are based, didn’t just allow two generations of technicians to work with chemicals they knew to be potentially deadly. They made them. Their health, it seems, was a small price to pay to keep the F-111s airborne.

Countless former servicemen who worked on the de-seal/re-seal (DSRS) program at Ambcrlcy have died of dreadful diseases. Some have taken their own lives. Other seriously brain-damaged men, lost inside the Kafkaesque maze that is Australia’s military compensation system, are frustrated to the point of suicide.

This tragedy is compounded by the victims’ ages: many are in their 30s, 40s and early 50s – people whose best years have been stolen just when they should be enjoying the rewards of middle age. Instead, they are living agonising, confused and uncertain final years and months.

A July 2001 military Board of Inquiry found the RAAF command at Amberley culpably failed to protect its personnel due to a chain of command malfunction. In layman’s terms, this means no superior officer put the health of his men ahead of the aircraft until late 1999, when a new sergeant complained. De-seal operations were immediately suspended.

At a time when a federal parliamentary committee is abot1t to report on failures in the military justice system, the episode stands as a shocking indictment of a “group think” culture that pervades sections of the military and allows such unjust – even, arguably, criminal – practices to continue unchecked. No senior RAAF personnel have ever been punished. The committee has given no in-depth consideration to the episode.

The 2001 military inquiry found “…the scale and duration of the problem indicates that we are dealing with a deep-seated failure for which no single individual or group of individuals can reasonably be held accountable”. Meanwhile, a health study concluded the de-sealers were 50% more likely to develop cancers than other military personnel and that many suffered from depression, erectile dysfunction, skin and respiratory diseases, cardiovascular and neurological disease, mood swings and memory problems.

Anecdotally, an inordinate number of de-sealers’ wives have miscarried or given birth to children with abnormalities. Many of their children are now experiencing reproductive problems. Many have failed to eke out any sort of living since being medically discharged. Hundreds of marriages have failed. Domestic violence is rife.

Military aircraft technicians are drawn from the top 5% to 10% of society’s IQ pool. It is compelling, then, that the University of Newcastle health study concluded the de-sealers today live among the 30% of society with the poorest lifestyle and health.

This is a dark, disturbing story with no prospect of a happy ending. Its central characters will never recover. Not even the swift delivery of compensation – as promised by the federal government – could change that.

This story’s only light comes through the window it opens onto a human spirit that compels these desperate people to keep fighting the system they so unquestioningly, so patriotically served.

It is a harrowing experience to sit with two desperately ill mates, both fathers in early middle age, while they blithely discuss suicide as if it were merely another medical treatment open to them.

Frank Cooper, 47, has the delivery, timing and presence of a stand-up comic. When you shake his knobbly hand, contorted by arthritis and punctuated by the space formerly inhabited by the amputated finger, you realise everything’s wrong. He’s edgy and anxious; like most former de-sealers, he suffers terrifying panic attacks, though they are the least of his medical problems. He is eager to launch into his story. For who knows? Tomorrow he mightn’t remember it.

But he defers to the younger, more obviously ill man, 46-year-old Rob Solomons. Solomons has gone irreversibly to seed. Of course, it’s impossible to stay fit when you’ve got chemically induced dementia and you’re debilitated by migraines and blackouts, depression, nerve damage in your feet and hands, chronically high blood pressure, bowel and digestive diseases and respiratory problems. His marriage has failed.

On top of all that, there’s the final indignity: the lingering emotional insecurity born of having been unable to get it up for years.

But Frank is a mate. So he can hang shit on Rob. He does so mercilessly and, as they sit in Rob’s living room in Donnybrook on the coast north of Brisbane, they bounce off one another like some dark version of The Two Ronnies.

“He can’t remember what fuckin’ day it is,” Frank says, gesturing to Rob. “Ask him if he wants a cup of tea… he’ll go and make one, forget he’s done it and five minutes later make another one. There’ll be three cups of tea sitting there and he’ll go and make another one. You should go for a drive with him… I mean, no fuckin’ way – you wouldn’t get in a car with the bastard.”

Both men laugh hysterically. There’s no pretence. Just the gallows humour of the condemned.

The mood quickly segues from black comedy to tragedy.

“Go on,” Frank urges, “tell him about what we were discussing just before he arrived.”

“What?” stammers Rob. “Sss-suicide, do you mean?”

“Yeah – suicide,” says Frank.

“Yeah, mate, yeah … suicide,” says Rob, twitching as he turns to address me.

“We’ve both been there so often it’s not funny. You feel so shithouse all the time, and you can’t remember anything so you let people down constantly. Then there’s the mmm-mood swings, so you’re bloody impossible to live with. And then there’s just this constant fight for the compensation and money worries that just wears you down further and further. The frustration and stress is huge. I can tell you, the only reason I’m alive today is because I live with a 12-year-old bbbbb-boy [his son, with whom he lives alone] who supports me so wonderfully. He walks over and gives me a big hug and says, ‘Dad, are you gonna be OK”?’. What do I say? I know I won’t be.”

It’s his son’s 13th birthday today. Rob would have forgotten. Except his Palm Pilot reminded him with the message: GET UP – IT’S NICK’S BIRTHDAY. TRY AND BE HAPPY. He tries hard to !Je a good dad. He feels guilty because there’s so much he can’t do.

Frank. now three years into his third marriage, has two kids. He’s only just hung onto this wife who, like the partners of most former de-sealers, hates his pain and finds him cantankerous and unpredictable, but mostly sad.

“A week after the honeymoon for my third marriage, ,we came back from Perth and straight away I had a complete breakdown because I was so stressed that I’d lose her, too… how do you think that made her feel?”

He’s had a heart attack and suffers severe psoriasis that makes him shed layers of skin, snake-like, in the bed every night. Chronic spondylitis has resulted in five vertebrae being surgically fused, accounting for his hunched appearance; he’ll be in a wheelchair before long. He drives with a restricted licence and can’t move his head much. In 1988, he was diagnosed with chronic sarcoidosis, a rare’ asbestosis-like condition (common among former de-sealers) that causes fungus to grow in the lungs and robs the victim of breath. A typical week comprises visits to the hydrotherapist, the physiotherapist, the podiatrist, the dermatologist, the GP, the osteopath and the cardiologist. Work is unthinkable.

Like Rob, he has a small total and permanent disability pension and a medical Gold Card from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. But there is no formal acknowledgement that their ailments resulted from working on the de-seal program and both gave up trying to negotiate pension back pay when they became stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire. Neither has been compensated.

“I’ve got on the phone – we’ve all got on the phone – and said, ‘I’m going to top myself unless you sort this out’. But they don’t give a shit,” says Frank.

“I know I might have 10 years left. So it’s time the bastards stopped fucking us around – it’s just chewing up what precious time we’ve got left. [Defence Minister] Robert Hill made that statement last year – he said we’d be compensated. Well, where is it? Our lives are on bloody hold and the frustration and the stress is only making us worse – it’s killing us.”

Later, as Frank Cooper drives me to the train station, he says: “Mate, I’m really worried about Rob. He’s got no one, you know, to support him. No one.”

How did it come to this?

In 1963 the Menzies government ordered 24 General Dynamics F-111 long-range strike-bombers from the United States. Originally due for delivery in 1968, technical problems delayed their delivery until October 1973.

With their heavy payload of bombs and missiles, and their exceptional range – enabling them to fly to most Asian capitals and return to Australia without re-fuelling – they were intended as a deterrent to potentially hostile states in the region. The aircraft owes its range to its enormous fuel capacity. To this day the F-111 – which will be withdrawn from service in 2010 – is effectively a flying fuel tank. But it was defective from the start; the tanks were designed without an internal bladder and soon after delivery, avgas began leaking through the metal seams in the wings and the fuselage.

The same problem had happened in the US and the Americans had perfected a technique known as “deseal/re-seal”, whereby the original sealants were stripped through an elaborate process of chemical application, high-pressure blasting and hand picking with small, sharp instruments, before new, equally toxic, sealant was applied. A cocktail of dozens of toxic chemicals was also used. Perhaps the most infamous was SR51, a desealant and proven carcinogen. While some American service personnel worked on the F-111 tanks, the US military – perhaps sensing a future health scandal – mainly used labour from Latin America.

But for the Australians assigned to DSRS at Amberley, it was backbreaking, claustrophobic, physically and socially isolating, demoralising and potentially deadly work. For dozens of men and boys as young as 17, de-seal was their first posting after finishing apprenticeships in Wagga Wagga. “What was I going to say when they sent me to de-seal: ‘No, sir’?” says Frank Cooper. “Come on, I mean I was 17 years old.”

For months at a time they would work in a makeshift cloth hangar, segregated from the rest of the base due to the foul smell of the chemicals. The technicians would work crouched or lying horizontally in the tanks, covered in ct1emicals and surrounded by fumes, for up to eight hours at a time.

The SR51 corroded their protective gloves in minutes and ate away their flimsy cotton overalls. Cumbersome respiratory gear was rarely worn because it made crawling through the tanks near impossible.

The workers were ordered not to wear jockeys under their overalls because the chemicals would melt them. “So you were sitting there in cotton overalls and this stuff – SR51 and other chemicals – were soaking into your cock and balls through the flimsy overalls – no wonder we’ve got all these sexual problems,” says Rob Solomons.

“You’d lapse into unconsciousness, get dragged out of the tank, get left on the floor to sober up and put back in again.”

Those who complained were malingerers, slackers, even though many quickly developed severe health problems and were treated on the base and at the civilian hospital in nearby Ipswich. If the de-seal program was suspended due to health concerns, the F-111s – whose flight crews were largely oblivious to the suffering of the maintenance crews – wouldn’t fly. This was unthinkable, as the board of inquiry noted.

One de-sealer with serious health problems who refused to re-enter the tanks was sentenced to seven days’ detention. Another was given the particularly onerous task of incinerating the SR51 goop once it congealed. He was constantly covered in the stuff, suffered the pro-forma headaches, dizziness, mood swings and depression, and complained, to no avail.

Even on the base, the de-sealers were ostracised because of their smell. When the SR51 combined with body fat, it produced an odour likened to a mixture of old socks, rotten eggs, sweat, dirt and ammonia. The de-sealers were consequently banned from the base cinema, the mess and the boozer. The smell was impervious to showering. Wives and girlfriends slept in spare beds. Single men staying in barracks were given their own rooms.

All the while the de-sealers’ bodies tried to purge the poison by expelling a stinking yellow grease – a combination of body fat and noxious chemicals. The sludge permanently stained bed sheets and clothing.

“It’s a beautiful piece of machinery – I love the F1-11. It still gives me goose bumps when I hear the afterburners crack up for take-off. It’s a sound you can never get enough of.”

So says Geoff Curl who, at just 42, might pass for a man in his 50s. He’s yet another former de-sealer whose trashed health is the legacy of keeping the F-111 airborne. For more than 20 years he has suffered reflux, chronic bowel problems, arthritis, painful calcium deposits in his hands and shoulders, aching joints, agoraphobia, panic attacks, depression, dangerous mood swings and obsessive compulsive disorder. He has an obvious tremor.

The illnesses have, by his own admission, made him a nightmare to live with.

“I have been violent towards my wife and my kids,” he says. “I was also violent towards my first wife. I see red and I just snap. My wife is fantastic for what she puts up with. She deserves recognition.”

As part of his quest to get compensation, Curl saw numerous doctors at the behest of the military authorities. He maintains they were “doctor shopping” to find a diagnosis that would downplay his illnesses. While he receives a disability pension and his medical costs are covered by a Veteran’s Affairs Gold Card, he has received no compensation.

“The big fear that I have is that my life will be cut short…and [that] will leave my wife and children with very little. This is a real fear for me… I have watched friends of mine, also ex de-sealers, die at early ages of rapidly growing cancers,” he says.

“My quality of life has gone… it’s a life destroyed by the deliberate actions of RAAF officers who, with a blatant disregard for the life of the service personnel involved, chose to ignore all the warnings they had received about the chemicals we were using, and said, ‘Just do it’. Not one of them has apologised. Not one.”

Tony Brady began his apprenticeship two weeks after his 16th birthday. Soon “Mouse”, as he was known because of his tiny frame, was crawling inside the tanks. His size made him perfect for the job.

“I was used to access a lot of the smaller tanks and especially those that required moving past plumbing stilt in place; it often took over an hour of manoeuvring through the inside of the F-111 to access my work area, and longer to get out… I would be [so] stiff and swollen from being confined in such a small area for several hours that it made it difficult to work my way back out. We were required to have LFTs [liver function tests] every three months,” he says.

“One day, shortly after the blood tests, I got a call from medical section and they jokingly asked if I was glowing yellow… it turns out enzymes within my liver were more than 10 times their normal reading and I was taken out of de-seal immediately.”

Brady’s health is ruined. He is ·40. His second marriage recently failed. “My psychiatrists tell me that chemical poisoning has affected my mental health… I have panic disorder, I’m bipolar and suffer anxiety. Physically, my whole respiratory system is shot, I get bronchitis four or five times a year. I have chronic rhinitis and chronic allergic conjunctivitis, and I suffer from long-term infections due to my immune system not being able to handle things.” Brady, like the rest, awaits compensation.

Last year, Defence Minister Robert Hill promised the workers they would be compensated for their exposure to the chemicals – though not, it must be emphasised, for their immense pain and suffering or loss of earnings. The families of the dead stand to get nothing.

On October 26, Hill said he would take a submission to federal cabinet before Christmas recommending a single compensation scheme for the former de-sealers.

Hill said: “Obviously, at the time, the use of those solvents and other materials in those confined spaces was not understood to be dangerous in the way that it’s turned out to be. It’s something we clearly regret and we accept our responsibility to properly support and, where appropriate, compensate those who have suffered.”

For compensation specific to their injuries, the de-sealers must go through the courts (21 of them, including Cooper and Solomons, who are frustrated with waiting for military compensation or Hill’s ex-gratia payment, are suing the federal government, each for $800,000) or apply within the convoluted guidelines of several overlapping military compensation schemes.

There is further mounting anxiety among the former de-sealers that changes to the legislative definitions of impairment for lump-sum Commonwealth claimants injured before July 2004 will make it even harder for them to get compensation.

Under the changes, that which is currently defined as 10% impairment will be re-defined – or effectively downgraded – to a 5% impairment. Those who are not 10% incapacitated will be ineligible for compensation. They’ll also lose the right to sue their employers, even if the employer was negligent.

Ian Fraser, a former de-sealer with a range of serious health problems, now runs the F-111 De-seal Re-seal Support group with the help of Kathleen Henry and Liz Agerbeek, whose seriously ill husband Rudi also worked in the tanks. While they have energetically lobbied the federal government on behalf of the injured and have done much to keep the de-sealers in the pages of the local press in Queensland where most of them still live, Fraser is now calling for a royal commission into the military compensation system.

“OK, so we’ve had the board of inquiry which identified the problem, we’ve had the health study which showed we were injured by the chemicals, the government has promised us compensation, but we’re still waiting. They should be treating this as a humanitarian issue, not a political problem,” he says.

“Blokes are dying [the support group estimates 40 or 50 have died since the board of inquiry] while they wait for compensation and get shuffled from agency to agency and doctor to doctor.

“Enough is enough. We need a royal commission into the way these people have been treated before more are mistreated in the same way. Everyone’s had enough.”

“We need grief counselling because we know all these men are going to die,” Liz Agerbeek says matter-of-factly.

“It’s a mother-child relationship that’s developed between the wives and their men. It’s not healthy. All we do is care for them. We do not have normal healthy relationships… those planes have ruined our lives.

While Curtin University in Western Australia is conducting a lifestyle impact study on the partners of the de-sealers, no quantifiable research has been conducted into the health of their offspring. But anecdotal evidence (supported by postings on the support group’s website www.gooptroop.com) abounds that countless children of the F-111 workers were born with defects.

They include Allan and Kathleen Henry’s son Sean, who was conceived while his father worked in the tanks. He was born with respiratory and learning problems. He also suffers from a rare disease, osteo chrondoma, which causes tumours to grow from the bone.

“When he was a little boy, he effectively grew another bone out of his shoulder blade. He’s had five growths like this removed from his body. As a little boy, he used to ask us what was going on and we’d tell him he was growing spare parts,” Kathleen says.

Doctors give Sean a life expectancy of 30. He’s just turned 21 – a little younger than his father, Allan, when he first crawled into the bowels of an F-111. How cruel it is that the F-111 will be almost 50 when it’s eventually retired from service.

*****

Delay – Deny – Die

100 Untimely* deaths recorded in Irish Air Corps toxic chemical exposure tragedy!

Untimely* deaths of serving & former Irish Air Corps personnel

  • 100 verified deaths have occurred in total since 1980 
  • 87 of these deaths have occurred since 2000
  • 62 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

  • 41% of deaths are from cancer
  • 5% of deaths are specifically pancreatic  cancer
  • 29% of deaths are from cardiac issues
  • 6% of deaths are specifically cardiomyopathy related
  • 15% of deaths are from suicide (at least 15 suicides)

*We record untimely as dying at or before age 66 (civilian pension age), average age of death is 53 years. We are counting deaths from medical reasons & suicide, we are not counting accidental deaths nor murder.

We are not stating that every single death is directly due to chemical exposure but many personnel who did not handle chemicals directly were unknowingly exposed due to close proximity to contaminated work locations.