Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Okay. Following on from Senator Paddy Burke and the issue of oversight, we had a Commencement matter debate this morning on the search and rescue, SAR, contract awarded to Bristow. In his reply, the Minister of State, Deputy Jack Chambers, spoke about how the process was overseen by an external body that reported to the Department. The process that was overseen was an administrative issue, concerned with whether the letters were signed, the relevant dates met, etc. It does not secure certainty, for me or anybody else in this House, that the person reporting in as the external oversight has any knowledge whatsoever in the area being overseen.

Returning to the SAR contract, which was the subject of that Commencement matter debate this morning, the entirety of this contract rests on the shoulders of one man who is not a pilot but a consultant to the Department. He is not a pilot and never flew SAR himself, yet he is the expert who advised the Department. This external body, then, is overseeing the paperwork, if we want to put it that way. None of this makes the contract, and the public procurement in this regard, safe, in my view. Public procurement here is running to tens of billions of euro and there is no proper oversight whatsoever. When we do try to get oversight, we are either shouted down and told we cannot have it, or we have smart Secretaries General in Departments who use all sorts of smokescreens to prevent us from getting to the questions we need answered. The SAR contract awarded in 2011 and the one awarded now is rotten to the core and needs oversight, and this is not the only thing that needs oversight. Everything needs oversight.