Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

The report adopted on the Aer Lingus Viscount aircraft which crashed off Tuskar Rock in 1968 was taken up in the lifetime of the previous Dáil and Seanad. I believe Deputy Mary O'Rourke was the Minister in charge at the time and a full investigation was undertaken. It was a terrible tragedy. Many unanswered questions arose from that tragedy. For many years, pilot error was blamed but that was subsequently discovered to be unfounded. There was disquiet, however, among the bereaved families and people from the area in Wexford near where the crash occurred. The investigation was seen as a mechanism to ascertain the truth about the plane crash in which all lives were lost. There was a suspicion for a long time that perhaps a drone from a military base in Wales might have been responsible or that the aircraft was shot down by mistake.

RTE's recent investigation analysed all aspects of the report and appeared to underline certain deficiencies in it. I am raising the matter now to highlight that investigation and to see what the Department is saying about it. The general thrust of the RTE investigation was that certain aspects should have been analysed further and more importance should have been attributed to them by the accident investigators who produced the report. These issues involved ejector seats and various things of that nature.

I have tabled this Adjournment matter to elicit a response from the Department to the RTE investigation and to ascertain whether the report, which was published a short number of years ago, should be revisited. I also wish to ascertain whether, as a consequence of the investigation undertaken by RTE, this matter should be analysed further by experts to find out if at long last some elements of the causes can be recognised. In that way people could get closure regarding the incident.