Spy-in-sky €8m helicopter 'could not see in dark'
GETTING the Garda Air Support Unit off the ground was expensive, troublesome and in some instances almost farcical, the Dail Committee entrusted with getting value for money heard yesterday.
When a helicopter ran into cloud at night in Co Clare it had to stop . . . and didn't operate again in rural areas in darkness for nine months.
The Secretary of the Department of Justice, Tim Dalton, admitted it was a trial-and-error process but members of the all-party Committee of Public Accounts felt it was mostly error.
The 'spies in the sky' aircraft were also over budget and a cause of tension between gardai and Air Corps personnel with safety and technology changes also causing delays.
The committee was told by Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell that it was £3m in excess of the initial estimate of £5.66m and the helicopter was grounded for all-night flying in rural areas for nine months in 2001 for safety reasons - because it ran into cloud on a mission in County Clare.
Furthermore, while a contract for a second helicopter was signed in August 1999, the Comptroller said that "quibbling over the level of equipment on board" was one of the factors which delayed its delivery until February 1 of this year.
There was also a legislative obstacle to a move to switch the piloting of the aircraft away from the inadequately-trained Air Corps and into the private sector.
The Air Corps personnel did not have the capacity for night flying for the new chopper and it emerged late in January 2002 through the offices of the Attorney General that under the Irish Aviation Act, a State aircraft could not be registered to be flown by civilians.
Mr Dalton told the committee that as a result they had to return to the Air Corps to operate the EC135.
An investigation into the "cloud" incident had sought greater night training for the Aer Corps as well as fitting a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder to any new aircraft.
Mr Dalton said the helicopter should have been in use 12-18 months earlier.
GETTING the Garda Air Support Unit off the ground was expensive, troublesome and in some instances almost farcical, the Dail Committee entrusted with getting value for money heard yesterday.
When a helicopter ran into cloud at night in Co Clare it had to stop . . . and didn't operate again in rural areas in darkness for nine months.
The Secretary of the Department of Justice, Tim Dalton, admitted it was a trial-and-error process but members of the all-party Committee of Public Accounts felt it was mostly error.
The 'spies in the sky' aircraft were also over budget and a cause of tension between gardai and Air Corps personnel with safety and technology changes also causing delays.
The committee was told by Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell that it was £3m in excess of the initial estimate of £5.66m and the helicopter was grounded for all-night flying in rural areas for nine months in 2001 for safety reasons - because it ran into cloud on a mission in County Clare.
Furthermore, while a contract for a second helicopter was signed in August 1999, the Comptroller said that "quibbling over the level of equipment on board" was one of the factors which delayed its delivery until February 1 of this year.
There was also a legislative obstacle to a move to switch the piloting of the aircraft away from the inadequately-trained Air Corps and into the private sector.
The Air Corps personnel did not have the capacity for night flying for the new chopper and it emerged late in January 2002 through the offices of the Attorney General that under the Irish Aviation Act, a State aircraft could not be registered to be flown by civilians.
Mr Dalton told the committee that as a result they had to return to the Air Corps to operate the EC135.
An investigation into the "cloud" incident had sought greater night training for the Aer Corps as well as fitting a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder to any new aircraft.
Mr Dalton said the helicopter should have been in use 12-18 months earlier.
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