Taxpayers ‘did not lose out in sale of army helicopters’

GOVERNMENT ministers have denied that the taxpayer lost out on millions of euro following the sale of four Irish army helicopters.

The four Defence Forces helicopters were originally sold to a US company for a mere €311,000 but, according to weekend reports, were then resold to the Chilean navy for nearly €19 million.

However, Junior Defence Minister Pat Carey yesterday said it was “factually incorrect” as claimed in reports that taxpayers had lost out on the deal.

The Dauphin helicopters were 20 years old, he explained, and had been in need of serious and costly repair.

“They had been taken out of a lot of operational matters including search and rescue. Their capabilities were extremely limited.

“The other issue was the avionics in them were first generation and would have needed replacement and the reality is it wasn’t possible to get avionics for them or spare parts,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

The decision was taken to sell the army aircraft in 2006 after internal department inquiries estimated that the cost of doing up the aircraft could have been up to €3.5m for each one, added Mr Carey.

The price received was the “best price got”, he stressed.

“We believe the correct course of action was taken because replacement helicopters and other planes for the Air Corps were necessary,” he added.

The four helicopters were sold to Colorado firm Rotor Leasing.

Company official Christopher Bateman yesterday said: “None of them were airworthy, two of them hadn’t flown in four years. The other two had been more recently taken out of service.”

The aircraft had been due for significant inspections before being sold by the Government but were in various states of disrepair, he added.

The US company had incurred huge costs bringing the helicopters across the Atlantic, repairing them and then had put them on the market a year and half ago, the company official added.

Mr Bateman told RTÉ that the original price for the helicopters was a fair one. He would not say how much they were sold on for but admitted the price had been at least 100% above the original sale price but only after the repairs had been completed.