Tag: No 4 Support Wing

Air Corps member ‘penalised’ for protected disclosure

The Dáil has heard that several long-serving members of the Air Corps have been penalised for having made protective disclosures which flagged concerns over health and safety.

An Irish Air Corps workshop in Engineering Wing in 2007

Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit – Solidarity TD, said that the disclosures related to using “dangerous chemicals”, the inability of all members of a team to have children and the lack of oversight of officers who were never held to account.

As a result of “the failure of the top brass”, the Mr Boyd Barrett said, one of the whistle-blower’s “felt that he had to retire”.

The man was unable to bring a case before the Workplace Relations Commission as he was advised, “you’re not an employee, you’re a worker”.

He has now agreed to have his story recounted to the Dáil, Mr Boyd Barrett told the deputies present.

“Sergeant Patrick Gorman served for 35 years in the Air Corps” with “an exemplary conduct rating”, having served in Lebanon, Somalia, Liberia and Chad, sometimes on multiple tours of duty, said Mr Boyd Barrett.

“He blew the whistle about his treatment and the treatment of other members of the Defence Forces… who made protected disclosures and who were penalised as a result.”

Children exposed to ‘contaminated clothing’

“They were wearing gloves, for example, that disintegrated on contact with chemicals that they were been asked to use” on aircraft repairs, he said of Sgt Gorman’s experiences.

“He was working with them for 18 years without a respirator, and it was only in the last two years that they got the respirator.

“In a group of seven people working in the sheet metal structural repair shop, seven of the people couldn’t have children, which seems quite incredible.”

Mr Boyd Barrett revealed that some of the carcinogenic chemicals involved were referenced in the eponymous film about the famous US whistleblower, Erin Brockovich, who successfully sued a utility firm for hundreds of millions of dollars for contaminating drinking water.

“Paint strippers that were banned elsewhere, still being used in the Irish Defence Forces,” he said.

Soldiers were not warned about contaminated clothing which they wore “home to their kids”, and which led to “it being mixed in with the washing of children and the rest of the family, potentially contaminating them with dangerous chemicals”.

Read the full article on the RTE website…

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2024/0502/1447056-dail-protected-discolsure/

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Sgt Gorman did the right thing in 2015/2016 by making Protected Disclosures to the Minister for Defence and the Health & Safety Authority which resulted in the HSA threatening legal action against Air Corps if they failed to implement urgent chemical health & safety reforms.

The Department’s own “O’Toole Report” and the almost three year HSA interventions fully vindicated Sgt Gorman. However, the response of the Irish Air Corps, the Department of Defence & successive Ministers (Coveney, Kehoe & Varadkar) was to ensure that Sgt Gorman was constructively dismissed.

The Air Corps Toxic Chemical Exposure Scandal broke in the Irish Examiner thanks to Joe Leogue in January 2017. Despite being raised in excess of twenty times in the Dáil, Seanad, Public Accounts Committee and even Varadkar’s confidence motion, this is the first time that RTE have reported on the scandal #106 dead.

Better late then never eh ?

Delay – Deny – Die

Irish Air Corps members allege they were penalised for whistleblowing by loss of retirement ceremony

Failure to invite soldier back for unit presentation is ‘biggest slap in the face’, says airman

Unfortunate “Daft Dave” runs scared after tripping up multiple times…

It has been alleged to the Workplace Relations Commission that around half a dozen Air Corps service members were not afforded a retirement ceremony when they left the service as an act of penalisation for turning whistleblower. The claim was aired after the State failed in a bid to have the press excluded from a whistleblower protection claim against the Department of Defence earlier on Wednesday.

An Air Corps commandant gave evidence that the sort of “unit presentation” complained about would be organised primarily by colleagues and peers, and that there was “no responsibility on anyone” to arrange a retirement party.

Former airman Patrick Gorman claims he was penalised in breach of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 on the grounds that he was not invited back to his former unit to receive a presentation marking his retirement because he made protected disclosures a number of years earlier. His representative, Niall Donohue, told the Workplace Relations Commission on Wednesday that up to six former members of the No 4 Support Wing of the Air Corps, based at Baldonnel Aerodrome, “all got the same treatment” after making protected disclosures, and were prepared to come and testify in support of his claim.

Mr Guidera, appearing instructed by the Chief State Solicitor’s Office, had sought a hearing “in camera” in a motion resisted by the complainant’s representative Mr Donohue.

“This is strictly in the public interest. The facts, if heard, will be greatly appreciated by the public,” Mr Gorman said.

“The biggest slap in the face you could give a soldier who’d served 35 years in the Defence Forces would be to not invite him back for a unit presentation,” Mr Gorman told the tribunal.

Mr Donohue said the alleged denial of a retirement ceremony to the veteran “undermined his reputation in the community of the Defence Forces. Why was this done to him? The answer is it was done to him because he put in his protected disclosure.”

There was legal argument over the interpretation of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 as it applied to a member of the Defence Forces.

Mr Guidera contended Defence Forces personnel only have the status of a “worker” as defined in the legislation – leaving them without the protections afforded to an “employee” in the Act.

Mr Donohue argued that the words “worker” and “employee” in the whistleblower protection law were “interchangeable”.

The adjudicator said he would adjourn the hearing to consider preliminary arguments on the admissibility of the claim, adding that he would decide at that stage whether to call a senior officer as sought by the complainant.

Read full article by Stephen Bourke on the Irish Times website…

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2024/02/21/air-corps-members-allege-they-were-penalised-for-whistleblowing-by-loss-of-retirement-ceremony/

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Delay – Deny – Die