The Taoiseach is to look at proposals to review the healthcare needs of sick former Air Corps personnel.<\/p>\n
The review, initiated by then defence minister Simon Harris after it was suggested by Sinn F\u00e9in Cork South Central TD Donnchadh \u00d3 Laoghaire, was set up earlier this year to see how an assessment of needs could work.<\/p>\n
Miche\u00e1l Martin said he was supportive of the initiative when he was asked by the Irish Examiner, saying: \u201cI will have a look at what they are proposing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Concerns were raised by Air Corps whistleblower Gavin Tobin more than 10 years ago regarding the issue.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin is the third senior Government figure to show interest in a review of former Air Corps personnel\u2019s health needs.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, defence minister Helen McEntee \u2014 who succeeded Mr Harris in November \u2014 told the D\u00e1il senior officials in her department recently met Mr \u00d3 Laoghaire to discuss the review.<\/p>\n
Off the back of what she said was a \u201cconstructive\u201d meeting, she told TDs she hoped to have a detailed report on proposals for a review of health needs by next March.<\/p>\n
This was, Mr \u00d3 Laoghaire told the D\u00e1il, prompted by concerns raised about \u201csevere health outcomes, including untimely deaths, because of exposure to dangerous chemicals\u201d among former Air Corps maintenance crews and other technicians.<\/p>\n
To date, as the D\u00e1il has heard, more than 110 former and serving personnel have died, a large proportion of whom died of particular diseases at what appear to be higher than national average rates.<\/p>\n
Mr \u00d3 Laoghaire said: \u201cThis issue has been ongoing for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile there are various cases before the courts, this should not preclude the State from at least looking at the health needs of affected former Air Corps personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are entitled to take legal cases, but not everybody is in a position to and there are issues that need to be looked at for the group as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this should be a cross-party issue, and I hope various officials associated with this can at least look at what can be done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am hopeful that the officials Mr Harris put me in touch with share this goal but time will tell.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Tobin said he was “heartened” by the Taoiseach’s response.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to seeing what comes of this. While other survivors and I, with serious health issues due to our exposure to chemicals, have fought for a resolution for years, we remain optimistic that the right thing can be done for those affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope this helps translate into much-needed help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach is to look at proposals to review the healthcare needs of sick former Air Corps personnel.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[13308,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-200199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-defence-forces","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}