Tag: Fine Gael

Air Corps official denies file destruction

An Air Corps official has denied whistleblowers’ allegations that he destroyed documents central to a legal action against the State.

Six former Air Corps technicians are suing the State, alleging inadequate health and safety management of the cancer-causing chemicals they used, and that their unnecessary exposure to these substances has caused them to suffer chronic illnesses including cancer.

The State has denied this.

Health and safety reports on conditions at the time in the Air Corps headquarters at Casement Aerodrome are missing, with the Defence Forces speculating that these documents were misplaced over time.
Two whistleblowers have alleged that an Air Corps official ordered the destruction of the documents, with one of the whistleblowers naming the official in question in a protected disclosure to Paul Kehoe, the junior defence minister.

Mr Kehoe this week revealed that the named official has denied the claim.

Read full article on The Journal website below…

Dail Éireann Written Answers 26/09/17 – Department of Defence – Protected Disclosures

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

548. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if he has acted on the information relayed to him by a whistleblower that specifically named the Defence Forces official who allegedly ordered the destruction of health and safety documents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40485/17]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

As I have previously indicated to the House, this matter was raised with me in correspondence where certain allegations were made that the documents had been destroyed. The correspondence in question was also addressed to the Chief of Staff and to the Deputy. I requested a report from the Chief of Staff on the actions taken on foot of the accusation.

He has informed me that the officer named met with the General Officer Commanding the Air Corps. The officer concerned has refuted the allegations made and it should further be noted that documents referred to were not military documents, nor did they carry any military security classification.

*****

Can we suggest that Minister Kehoe and the Chief of Staff meet with the NCO who was ordered to destroy the Health & Safety documents to hear his testimony first hand.

Can we also suggest that the Minister & Chief of Staff meet with the Health & Safety officer who commissioned the reports to determine his recollection of the contents of the Tech Stores Air Quality Report & the Ramp Carbon Monoxide report.

Perhaps they might also ask the Health & Safety officer why the adverse findings in the 1995 ERF report and the recommendations in the 1997 Forbairt report were not communicated to lower ranks and why the recommendations for PPE and chemical training were not acted upon for 20 years.

DELAY – DENY – DIE

Dáil Éireann Written Answers 26/09/17 – Department of Defence – Chemical Exposure Report

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

547. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if he will waive legal privilege and publish the Chemical Exposure Report 1994-2005 in the public interest and in the interest of transparency. [40484/17]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

The report referenced by the Deputy was prepared in the context of ongoing legal proceedings. As the release of the report could adversely impact on those proceedings, I will not be releasing the report.

*****

Minister Paul Kehoe must note that there are many personnel who have not taken legal action but whose lives are being regularly threatened by illness flare-ups of pneumonia type illness, hypokalaemia & other incapacitating occurrences such as stroke like symptoms that are currently defying diagnosis

Being able to provide firm evidence of unprotected toxic chemical exposure through dangerous work practices, to treating doctors & consultants, may assist these medical personnel successfully diagnose & treat our colleagues.

The State Claims Agency, who is advising the Minister and his department, does not give a damn whether serving or former personnel live or die and furthermore they couldn’t give two hoots about Minister Kehoe’s political career.

Minister Kehoe needs to be fully aware that not releasing this document will cost lives.

DELAY – DENY – DIE

‘We need to be vindicated. Friends are dead or dying’ : Air Corps report due this week

IRISH AIR CORPS whistleblowers say they hope an independent report due to be published this week will corroborate their claims that safety procedures around chemicals at Baldonnel Airfield put them at risk.

In the last 12 months, at least six former members of the Defence Forces have started legal proceedings against the State, alleging that they were exposed to toxic levels of chemicals and that a lack of protective equipment has left them with lifelong illnesses.

In January of this year, Junior Defence Minister Paul Kehoe ordered that an independent investigation be conducted by former Attorney General senior official Christopher O’Toole. The complainants have been told this crucial report will be released this week.

Read full article on The Journal website below…

Disclosure review for Air Corps staff

Defence Forces whistle-blowers who raised concerns about Air Corps staff exposure to carcinogenic chemicals are to receive the review of their disclosures this week.

The Crucifixion

Last January, the Irish Examiner revealed how whistleblowers raised the health and safety issues with Cabinet members, and that the protected disclosures came years after six former Air Corps staff had brought legal action against the State, over the chronic illnesses they suffer.

The six claim their illnesses, including cancer and neurological issues, are as a result of their working environment. Four separate whistleblowers have made disclosures relating to current health and safety issues at Air Corps headquarters at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel, Co Dublin.

Despite the first protected disclosure coming in December 2015, a third party was not appointed to review the whistleblowers’ claims until September of last year.

A month later, the health and safety watchdog published the findings of its own investigations into conditions at Casement Aerodrome. The Health and Safety Authority threatened the Air Corps with legal action, unless it addressed concerns it raised following a series of inspections — a number of issues that mirrored the warnings of the whistleblowers.

Read full article on the Irish Examiner website below…

Dáil Éireann Written Answers 20/09/17 – Department of Defence – Defence Forces Properties

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

810. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if his attention has been drawn to the fact that dangerous chemicals such as ardrox 666 were disposed of for the Air Corps by a company that collected and disposed of all such highly toxic, corrosive and carcinogenic chemicals; and if the amount of chemicals purchased corresponds with the amount sent for safe disposal by the company engaged by the Air Corps to carry out such work in the past 20 years. [39259/17]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

811. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if his attention has been drawn to the fact that dangerous chemicals were over the years in a systematic fashion leeched into the soil on lands at Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel; if soil and or ground water samples have been taken on the 600 acre site at Baldonnel during the past 20 years; if so, the results of those tests; the action taken to prevent this practice; if decontamination of the soil occurred; and if such practice has now ended. [39260/17]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 810 and 811 together. As this matter pertains to litigation which is ongoing, it would be inappropriate for me to comment at this time.

Dáil Éireann Written Answers 20/09/17 – Department of Defence – Defence Forces Properties

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

817. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if the State Claims Agency has been tasked with taking health and safety risk assessments at Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel; the date on which these assessments commenced; if they are still ongoing; the findings of these health and risk assessments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39834/17]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I am advised that the State Claims Agency do not undertake health and safety risk assessments in the Defence Forces. This function is the responsibility of the Defence Forces.

With regard to the Air Corps, the Deputy will be aware that the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), following a number of inspections in 2016, issued a Report of Inspection to the Air Corps on 21 October 2016, listing a number of matters requiring attention which included the areas of risk assessment.

The Air Corps as a consequence of this HSA report have implemented an improvement plan which is being conducted over eight phases. Seven of the eight phases have now been fully completed. The final phase is a continuous ongoing process. The implementation plan focuses on a number of areas, including risk assessments.

Defence admit another 12 sites “contaminated by toxic chemicals”

The Australian Defence Force has admitted its problem with toxic chemicals leaking from its bases is much bigger than first thought.

Another 12 ADF sites have been added to the original six investigated, causing more worry for the personnel who work there as well as the locals living nearby.

Defence Force widow Kristen Russell remembers the moment her partner Greg Lukes was diagnosed with kidney cancer at just 33 years old. Two years later, the father of two young children was dead.

“He was one of those people that went to the gym everyday, ate all the right things, never smoked, never drank. It was a shock that somebody like him could get that type of cancer,” Mrs Russell told 7 News.

Petty Officer Lukes served at HMAS Albatross in Nowra, working on Sea King helicopters. The ADF believes exposure to a number of chemicals related to the choppers was the likely cause of his deadly disease.

There is now further concern about chemicals known as preflourinated compounds used in firefighting foams at that base, among many others.

Petty Officer Luke’s widow has called on the ADF to “release the truth. If it’s happened, it’s happened. Let’s get it out there and move forward,” she said.

The ADF has already launched detailed investigations into six sites including HMAS Albatross.

On Tuesday it released a report revealing chemicals were found in the soil or ground water at another 12 bases. The sites include three in NSW, two in Queensland, two in Victoria, one in Western Australia and three in the NT. Lawyers are already preparing for class actions.

Read read article & watch related video by following link below.

‘Coincidences’ hinder Air Corps whistleblowers’ case

A number of whistleblowers allege that a health and safety failure on the part of the Air Corps has caused their chronic illnesses. Joe Leogue looks at their case and how, just as with Garda Maurice McCabe, ‘coincidence after coincidence after coincidence’ has emerged to undermine their position.

“THERE are those who may say that this litany of grave errors can’t just simply be coincidence after coincidence after coincidence that is being suggested,” the senior counsel said.

The line was a standout contribution in a tribunal that made headlines in every news outlet this summer.

Senior counsel Pat Marrinan was talking about Garda Whistleblower Maurice McCabe — and how every one of a number of apparent ‘coincidences’ in his case worked to his detriment.

However, the line also resonated with whistleblowers involved in a different dispute.

A dispute that has found some at odds with the State. An ongoing scandal that has seen allegations of a cover-up, the alleged intimidation of those speaking out against the Defence Forces, and one that can be boiled down to one question: Are a number of men who served the State now seriously ill because of the Defence Forces’ failure to protect them from the effects of harmful chemicals?

Those speaking out do not believe the various occurrences — revealed in a series of articles in this newspaper since January — can be
coincidental.

The ongoing issue relating to chemical exposure in the Air Corps concerns two separate, yet related problems for the Defence Forces — the first of which was raised in 2013.

Back then, the first of a number of lawsuits against the State was filed in the High Court in which it was alleged that there were historic failures to protect technicians from the effects of the chemicals they used.

The second problem was revealed in November 2015, when the first of four whistleblowers within the Air Corps made protected disclosures to the then-defence minister Simon Coveney.

These men warned that the Air Corps was not doing enough to protect currently serving technicians from the harmful effects of the chemicals with which they clean and service the aircraft.

Their warnings would be vindicated following an independent investigation last year.

And yet the red flags should have been raised as far back as 2013, when the first of the lawsuits came — allegations that would be echoed years later by the protected disclosures.

Read more on the Irish Examiner below…

Air Corps official denies documents destroyed

An Air Corps official has rejected claims that inspection reports at the centre of legal cases against the State were deliberately destroyed, describing the allegations as malicious, writes Joe Leogue.

Air Corps tail wags ministerial dog.

The rebuke of the claims is contained in a series of emails between the Defence Forces and the Department of Defence, which has been seen by the Irish Examiner.

The State faces legal action from several former Air Corps technicians who claim the Defence Forces failed to adequately protect them from the harmful effects of the toxic chemicals they used on a daily basis.

Four whistleblowers have made protected disclosures on health and safety issues within the Air Corps — with two alleging that inspection reports show the Defence Forces were aware of safety shortcomings in the 1990s were deliberately destroyed as part of a cover-up.

However, Comdt Mark Donnelly, the Air Corps formation safety adviser, rejected these claims, and said the missing reports were “misplaced with the passage of time”.

“AC Formation and former Formation safety personnel have already commented on their concerns regarding these allegations,” Comdt Donnelly wrote in an email on March 8.

“These allegations of deliberate destruction of such documents are completely unfounded. It is my opinion that these comments are intended to be inflammatory, vexatious and malicious.”

Read more in the Irish Examiner