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.

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 whistleblowers “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, the 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”.

All of those who made protected disclosures were penalised, Mr Boyd Barrett said.

“They were denied their retirement unit presentation,” he said, “which is a ceremony where the members of their families are brought in and there’s a presentation.”

Sgt Gorman’s experiences were “indicative of what needs to be addressed”, he said, and serve to highlight how a bill before the house, which is aimed at reforming the Defences Forces, fails to do so.

Mr Boyd Barrett noted that the provisions in the Defence (Amendment) Bill include the establishment of the External Oversight Body.

But he said that, in light of the Government’s “tokenistic” commitment to fair trade union representation for members of the Defence Forces, he does not have faith that it will give the protection that is required.