The Government says the Defence Forces have no intention of investigating how health and safety reports at the centre of an alleged ‘cover up’ within the Air Corps have gone missing.
The State is facing at least six lawsuits from former Air Corps technicians who suffer chronic illnesses that they say were caused by their working environment at Casement Aerodrome.
All six have seen a toxico-pathologist who has given his medical opinion that their illnesses — including cancer, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, and memory loss — were caused by their exposure to harmful chemicals.
Last week the Irish Examiner revealed that health and safety reports arising from inspections of Casement Aerodrome in the 1990s — a period during which the six worked for the Air Corps —cannot be found by military authorities.
Sinn Féin defence spokesperson, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, has told the Dáil that he has seen the reports in question, and that they are critical of health and safety management at Casement Aerodrome at the time.
Mr Ó Snodaigh has questioned whether the disappearance of the documents is part of a cover-up to disguise the fact that the Defence Forces did not follow up on the inspections recommendations.
However, despite confirming that the inspections in question took place, and that the reports arising from these probes cannot be located, Junior Defence Minister Paul Kehoe has said there are no plans to look into how or why the documents went missing.
Read more on the Irish Examiner website.