Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Quinn and his team. I will refer to the Government jet given that everyone else has spoken about it. Deputy Cullinane referred to its new owners, Journey Aviation, its destinations, including Paris, and its home base of Palm Beach. I wish the new owners well. I looked at the flight history of the Government jet, in particular, the number of times it broke down. Deputy Cullinane stated the jet flew from New York to Paris under Journey Aviation. In 1997, only five years after it commenced operations for the State, the Government jet broke down en route to Paris leaving the then Taoiseach, Mr. John Bruton, on the tarmac. It also famously broke down in Mexico and the United States where it blocked Air Force One on one occasion and had to be taxied out of the way. In 2003, it failed to get off the tarmac at Baldonnel Aerodrome when the then Taoiseach was about to fly to Prague for a meeting and an air taxi had to be hired at short notice at a cost of €36,000. I wish Journey Aviation the best and wish its customers well. Deputy Cullinane referred to various fancy paraphernalia. I wonder if the number of times the Government jet broke down was advertised because we are as well shot of that particular aircraft. As an aside, I know Donald is selling Air Force One and buying a new one. Perhaps we may avail of that opportunity at a knock-down price.

To address Vote 36 of the appropriation accounts, there was a slight excess in the outturn for the purchase of military transport. I note the excess arose due to requirements to purchase additional military vehicles. I also note that the replacement of heavy armoured cars and troop transporters is planned by the Department. Before Christmas, I asked the Taoiseach a question on this matter. Will Mr. Quinn take me through this process because there is disenchantment with the tender competitions run by the Department? Timoney Technology, an Irish company, is one of the world's leading companies in designing and developing light armoured vehicles, yet it cannot secure a simple engagement with the Department to enable it to illustrate how it could serve our armed forces and the nation. It is a leading manufacturer and I mention it because we are a small nation and this Irish company is engaged by the Australian military and other military forces elsewhere. I would appreciate if Mr. Quinn could make a statement on a tender process that would allow for simple engagement to have this company illustrate how it could best serve our nation.

Mr. Maurice Quinn:The normal process that we follow in the Department of Defence for procurement is open tender. That is standard practice. We are also doing a lot of work on supporting enterprise arising out of the White Paper and decisions that were taken earlier. There is a whole range of vehicles that we are procuring in the period ahead. I will come to the Mowags. There are the armoured logistical vehicles and armoured utility vehicles. Not to labour the point, but the nature of our overseas deployments is such that where troops are deployed in armoured personnel carriers, the vehicles supporting them also need to be armoured so we are doing a lot of work on that at the moment.

With regard to the upgrade of the 80 armoured personnel carriers we have, which is original equipment provided by Mowag, there was a very long process followed within the organisation to bottom out on what was the most appropriate way of ensuring that armoured capability was available to the Defence Forces into the future. We had 80 of these vehicles starting back in 2003 I think and the outcome of all of that was that the nature of the work that was required to be done on the vehicles meant that we needed to deal, on a sole source basis, with the original equipment provider. That was the contract that we awarded shortly before Christmas to GDELS for the work to be done on our armoured personnel carriers.