The privatisation of air search and rescue is unnecessary and wasteful, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
Forty years ago this Christmas, a distress message was picked up from a French fishing vessel off the Connemara coast. The Emerance had lost engine power, was drifting towards rocks, and the crew of 16 were taking to the liferafts. Weather conditions were deteriorating when Comdt Barney McMahon, Lieut Fergus O'Connor and Sgt Peter Sheeran took off from Casement Aerodrome at Baldonnel, west Dublin, and flew 160 miles to the rescue.
Their aircraft, an Alouette helicopter, had only been delivered several weeks before from France, and this was the crew's first official search and rescue mission. Until then, the State had been totally dependent for air rescue on the British military. The new helicopter had no liferaft, the most basic of safety gear, and an "atrocious radio". The pilot was still trying to find the fishing vessel, or liferafts, when he ran low on fuel.
The helicopter was over north Connemara when Comdt McMahon spotted a possible landing "pad" - a handball alley, just outside Clifden. He touched down, rustled up the owner of a local garage, contacted the local priest for the essential paraffin mix, and procured a set of nylons from the garage owner's wife to use as a filter. The crew were airborne again and en route to the Aran islands when they were told that the liferafts had been located by several other fishing vessels, and the 16 Frenchmen were safe and well.
Forty years and thousands of rescue missions later, members of the Air Corps search and rescue detachment from number 3 Operations Wing have just spent their final Christmas on duty on the west coast. An island medical evacuation was one of the last missions carried out in a highly-equipped medium-lift Sikorsky helicopter, based at Sligo Airport. In several weeks' time, the Irish Air Corps logo painted on the Sikorsky will be removed, as private operator CHC Helicopters takes over the base and the Air Corps is officially stood down from search and rescue altogether.
If the 10 pilots who moved to Sligo are in a state of shock over the decision, so are senior Irish Coast Guard officials who are ultimately responsible for State search and rescue. The announcement by the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, late last month represents the final blow to the defence wing, which experienced its worst accident in July, 1999, when four Dauphin helicopter crew died in Tramore, Co Waterford, on their return from a rescue mission.
A promise made then by the Minister for Defence to replace the helicopter fleet was not delivered upon. Last year, the Minister cancelled the contract for five medium-lift helicopters, ostensibly due to "cutbacks", but in reality due to the legal challenge mounted by an unsuccessful bidder when the contract became embroiled in politics.
The "compromise" for the Air Corps was a commitment to lease a medium-lift helicopter, until such time as a new contract was put out to tender. Over €11 million has been spent on the establishment of this new medium-lift base at Sligo Airport, and the target was to provide 24-hour cover from this autumn.
A pay claim submitted by winching crews through their union, PDFORRA, scuppered these plans, however. A wrangle over pay and safety issues deteriorated into a personality clash, winching staff went "sick", and the military then took the decision to redeploy them to non-flying duties back at Baldonnel - effectively restricting the Sikorsky to limited cover.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One news last month, the Minister justified his move to pull the Air Corps out of search and rescue altogether by referring to a "variety" of problems, including "blue flu". Fishermen's lives needed to be protected off the north-west, and the Air Corps could not guarantee this, he said.
However, fishing industry organisations have reacted angrily to this argument, stating that the Air Corps has provided invaluable cover to the fishing industry over the years. The Air Corps and Irish Coast Guard management had expected an interim arrangement might have to be provided until the industrial relations issues were sorted - or new winch crews trained. The Coast Guard had always made it clear that it did not want to be totally dependent on one private operator.
This total dependence has now come to pass, and the Minister's privatisation move - just a week before he took delivery of the new Government jet and boasted of Ireland's "€40 billion economy" - will have long-term consequences, and not just for search and rescue. It was the plight of upland farmers, rather than fishermen, which had precipitated State purchase of two Alouette helicopters, after the heavy snowfall of late 1962 and early 1963. Weather relief, services to offshore islands and medical evacuations in very difficult conditions have comprised some of the less publicised missions carried out by the Air Corps over the past four decades
Communities on Tory island in Co Donegal, which has no runway, Mayo's Clare Island, Inishturk and Inishbiggle, and Inishbofin, Co Galway, may all be affected by the reliance on one civilian operator. Whereas private helicopters are bound by civilian air regulations, Air Corps helicopters have been able to land in handball alleys, fields and in hospital car-parks in extreme circumstances. Health boards may also be hit with additional bills, as air ambulance flights - hitherto carried out at no charge by the Air Corps - may now have to be paid for.
But then the Department of Defence has had 40 years' practice of attempting to pass the buck. Barely a year after the Alouette helicopter purchase in the early 1960s, the same Department refused to finance provision of a suitable training launch for the helicopter crews in the Dublin area.
The Air Corps crew had to fly to the naval base at Haulbowline, Co Cork, to borrow a launch supplied by the then Commanding Officer. The cost of one helicopter flight to and from Cork would probably have paid for a year's lease on an east coast training boat. Lives may not be lost as a result of this decision, because the Irish Coast Guard is committed to maintaining a coastwide rescue service. However, with one callous and thoughtless stroke of a pen, the Government has thrown away years of experience and commitment, turned its back on those Air Corps families who opted to move to the north-west, and placed one private operator in an omnipotent position.