Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Transport thanks Senator Craughwell for raising this matter. As the Senator outlines, the final report by the Air Accident Investigation Unit into the Rescue 116 accident at Blackrock, County Mayo, on 14 March 2017 was published on 5 November 2021. The report contains 42 safety recommendations, of which 14 were addressed to the Minister for Transport, in the form of individual transmittal letters.

At the time of the publication of the report the Minister for Transport fully accepted the recommendations addressed to him. The Irish Aviation Authority also reviewed and fully accepted the recommendations addressed to it as the national aviation regulator, many of which have already been implemented or are proceeding to full implementation. It is a matter for the Irish Aviation Authority to respond independently to the findings addressed to it.

The Minister for Transport was required to acknowledge receipt of each transmittal letter and inform the AAIU of the actions taken or under consideration and, where appropriate, of the time necessary for their completion and where no action is taken, why this is so. The deadline for this was 3 February this year and the responses were sent to the AAIU on 1 February. The regulations require the AAIU to engage with the addressees of the safety recommendations and any requests for clarification from the AAIU to the Department have been received, considered and dealt with. The Department remains open to any further requests for clarification the AAIU may have.

The responses will be made public on the AAIU website via the associated published investigation report, and in the European safety recommendation information system. This is expected to happen shortly. It should be noted that the Department of Transport did not wait for the publication of the final report in order to implement changes on foot of lessons learned following the accident. Since March 2017, and specifically following receipt of the draft final report in September 2019, the Department, and in particular the Irish Coast Guard, have undertaken a significant programme of change across key areas to take account of issues raised and recommendations addressed to the Minister for Transport.

On foot of the interim report of the Air Accident Investigation Unit, the then Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport commissioned an independent review of oversight arrangements for search and rescue aviation operations in Ireland. Following publication of the independent review, known as the AQE report, in September 2018, the then Minister committed to implementing its 12 recommendations. As the Senator is aware, the Department of Transport is conducting a formal procurement process for a new Coast Guard aviation service following a detailed appraisal and business case prepared in accordance with the public spending code. The process began in December of last year with the release on eTenders of a pre-qualification questionnaire, PQQ, and response document for candidates to complete. The PQQ set out certain criteria to determine which operators would have the capacity to perform the contract.

Following this, an amendment was issued to the PQQ which specified the number and location of search and rescue, SAR, bases to reflect the existing configuration, namely, four bases at Dublin, Shannon, Sligo and Waterford. The amendment ensured the delivery of wider Government policies concerning balanced and even distribution of State services and investment, in particular the needs of island and rural communities. The PQQ stage of the procurement process concluded last month and both successful and unsuccessful candidates were notified of the outcome of the PQQ evaluation. The procurement process is now moving into the second stage, that is, the request for tenders.