Deirdre Clune (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 27: To ask the Minister for Defence the plans being put in place for the Air Corps to be ready to serve with aircraft in future overseas missions in view of the fact that overseas missions routinely lack helicopter support, for example, Liberia, Chad and so on; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42224/09]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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In the context of the production of the first White Paper on Defence (2000 - 2010), the issue of deploying the Air Corps assets on peace support operations was considered. It was decided that, given the resources of the Air Corps and the demands on their services at home, it would not be feasible for them to participate beyond the domestic environment. Individual members of the Air Corps will continue to be deployed on overseas peace support operations as they have been in the past.

The Department is currently in the process of drafting a second White Paper on Defence for the period 2011 – 2020. This will set out the contribution of the Air Corps, as well as the Army and the Naval Service, to Defence Provision. In relation to the existing helicopters available to the Air Corps, their primary mission is pilot training in the case of the EC135 and Army training support and domestic operations in relation to the AW139. In the absence of modifications to the aircraft to deal with environmental factors prevalent in Africa and flying in conflict zones, it would be not be possible to deploy these aircraft in a helicopter operational support role in Chad.