Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, it has not been finalised yet. I assure Deputy Brady that any assessment of companies tendering to provide this service will be very robust. The process will be independent. The State will go through an appropriate process. I think the Deputy indicated earlier that we will be committing hundreds of millions of euro in this regard. Over the lifetime of the next contract the State will spend well over half a billion euro on search and rescue contracts. The process that will need to be followed will need to be very robust and I assure the Deputy that no element of this contract will compromise the intelligence of the State. That is something, which for obvious reasons, is not going to be facilitated in the provision of a service like this.

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