How odd that we can have a political frenzy over the Tánaiste taking a single helicopter trip to Leitrim, costing maybe a few thousands pounds, and utter silence over the decision to spend €300 million on the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter for the Army. No other country in the world has chosen this aircraft for its defence forces, so the Air Corps will be the military launch-customer. And just two words come to Kevin Myers' mind: Yet again.
Yet again the Defence Forces are the dupes in a procurement process whose purpose does not seem to have been the acquisition of the best aircraft available for them, but to satisfy other needs - in this case, to create jobs in the Soviet Republic of Fingal. This is the largest dependency-constituency in Ireland, where vast industries have been built up at the taxpayer's expense, not least Team Aer Lingus, now taken over by the ailing giant FLS.
And yes, I know the Government insists that the decision to buy the Sikorsky is completely unrelated to the stated intention of the American aircraft manufacturer to spend €148 million at the FLS black hole; just as if naked women started to disport in the pond in St Stephen's Green, all the men gathering there with their binoculars would say, bless my soul, what a coincidence, I'm only here to look at the Muscovy geese, their full goose breasts and their lovely goosedown.
No political uproar
How does such a decision get made without a political uproar? And how can we be the only country in Europe which has chosen a US military aircraft for its Defence Forces which the US military won't touch? Our order is too small to justify manufacture of the S-92, so full-scale production of the type might never even happen. In which case, in two or three years' time, the Government might have to start the whole tendering/procurement process all over again.
By plumping for an option largely on its political and economic merits, regardless of requirements, the Government is showing an indifference bordering on contempt for the Air Corps, which, God knows, was driven nearly demented by an earlier and largely politically driven decision to acquire the Dauphin. (Whisper "Dauphin" into the ear of a slumbering Air Corps officer, and he'll wake up plucking his hair and screaming.)
For, at our own request, we had a special hibernicised Dauphin which, for reasons of economy, could do everything: it could fly day and night, do fisheries protection, could operate from ships, and perform search and rescue in any conditions. It was able to slice and steam vegetables, had an inbuilt car-wash, and it had its own wine cellar and a rooftop restaurant. It came provided with a Montessori school, milking parlour and typing pool. It even had a special device for rescuing boy scouts from the hooves of cattle.
It was wonderful: it could do almost everything. But could it fly? It was a complete and utter waste of money, and it broke the hearts of an entire generation of helicopter pilots who had joined the Air Corps to serve their country and their Army, not to sit in a Swiss pen-knife of an aircraft which had the flying qualities of the passage grave at New Grange.
Sensible purchase
It was intended, amongst other things, to replace the Sud-Aviation Alouette, the old lady of European helicopters which flew for the first time in 1955, and will probably outlive it in the Irish service. The Alouette was a safe and sensible purchase for an air arm which had limited capital and flying expertise, and which should absolutely never be in the position of pioneering any type of machine. But this is precisely what is happening with the Sikorsky S-92, and for reasons unrelated to the quality of the aircraft, or of the aircraft it was chosen in preference to.
(When I last referred to this issue, I misspelt the name as "Sikorski", which the manufacturer leapt on with glee. It was, I agree, a stupid mistake, no doubt influenced by a subconscious memory of the fate of General Sikorski, the Polish war hero killed in, ahem, an aircrash. The Sikorsky representative also alleged in a letter to this newspaper that I declined a briefing from their representative, which is not correct.
An employee of Fleischmann, Hilliard Saunders, Sikorsky's PR company in Ireland, had telephoned me, less to suggest a meeting than to insist on one, and pretty damned sharpish too; and after I sweetly replied that a simple demand for a meeting did not mean immediate acquiescence, I never heard from the company again. It was interesting to see an account of what I had thought was a private conversation being turned into a public matter: henceforth, I shall treat any approach from representatives of Fleischmann, Hilliard Saunders with some circumspection).
Pool of expertise
Virtually all of the western seaboard countries of Europe are buying either the European-made NH 90 or EH 101 helicopters. The choice of either type would have provided a large and common pool of expertise, technology and spare parts within friends and neighbours in fellow EU countries. Instead of going down that common route, we have embarked on a hare-brained and unique acquisition of a type for which there is no local technological back-up and, worse, so little demand that it might never go into production.
Why? Because of the political power of Fingal? The Government says not. Quite. And the reason I am perched with my binoculars in Stephen's Green is absolutely unrelated to the naked young lovelies capering in the pond there. . .