Mr. Maurice Quinn:

There are three aspects to this. The first concerns the Health and Safety Authority and the Air Corps. As the Chairman knows, we have litigation and people who have availed of the protected disclosures legislation so we must be careful in the way we deal with that. To clarify, the Chairman is correct in that protected disclosures were received in December 2015 and January 2016. The Health and Safety Authority visited the Air Corps quite soon thereafter. There was an ongoing conversation between the Air Corps and the Health and Safety Authority, particularly about how hazardous chemicals were being managed. The final sign off with the Health and Safety Authority was in October 2016. Quite a comprehensive plan has been signed off on between the Air Corps and the Health and Safety Authority that will be implemented over a number of years so that is all up and running.

Where liability is not contested or where there is shared liability, it is our practice with the State Claims Agency that an effort is made to resolve cases as expediently as possible. However, when it comes to litigation against the State, there is an obligation to ensure the correct treatment of all cases, which is, as the committee knows, to go into a process of establishing loss or damage and its extent along with cause and so forth. That process must still be gone through.