Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The families of Dara Fitzpatrick, Mark Duffy, Paul Ormsby, and Ciarán Smith, the brave crew killed when Rescue 116 crashed on a rescue mission in 2017, face significant legal bills as a result of the Department of Transport's review of the accident. The review was taken after the helicopter operator, CHC Ireland, challenged the report into the crash. The family hired legal teams because they had a reasonable fear that there would be an effort during the review to assign blame for the accident to the crew members who died. The families were dragged into the review because they felt that the Department would not defend their loved ones. They now find themselves faced with legal bills of hundreds of thousands. It is scandalous that the Department did not agree to pay the families' costs in the first place. It is more scandalous that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has argued against supporting and paying those costs. I hope that the Taoiseach will agree that this is a horrendous way to treat the families of people who died in the line of duty. I ask the Taoiseach directly if he stands by the Green Party's leader's decision. I hope he does not. If he does not, will he now raise with his coalition partners the urgent need to meet in full the legal costs of these families?

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