£3,000 per week housing bill for crews displaced by damage to hangar

AIR Corps helicopter rescue crews are to spend another three months in a Donegal hotel, at a total cost of about £80,000. The stay is due to a seven month delay in fixing a hangar roof at their regular northwest base.

Roof repairs to the hangar, which houses the Dauphin helicopter at Finner Camp, Co Donegal, are not now expected to be completed until the end of May.

The roof took flight in a bad storm last November 6th, and the helicopter was relocated to the commercial airport further north at Carrickfin. The crews, working on rotation, have been accommodated in a nearby Donegal hotel at an extra cost of £3,000 a week, according to the Department of Defence.

Air sea rescue is carried out on behalf of the Department's Irish Marine Emergency Service (IMES) and the Finner craft recorded most of the 141 call outs last year. However, there is general consensus that the roof would not have become airborne were it not for the Department's tendering procedure, which cannot always be carried out with military precision.

Difficulties in closing the hangar door had been causing a wind tunnel which was felt with full force on the night of November 6th. Unfortunately, a contract for repairs to the door had not been agreed by the time the storm hit the roof literally.

In a separate air sea rescue development, the Department is not expected to invoke the penalty clause for late delivery of the new medium range helicopter to Shannon.

The craft, which is being provided on contract to IMES by the Scottish company, Bond Helicopters, is not expected to be in place until mid March. A back up helicopter has been working from Shannon since January 1st.

Bond was granted a two month extension from January 1st, subject to a penalty clause, to provide a craft equipped with auto hover.

Autohover is computer assisted navigational equipment which permits the aircraft to hold a fixed position and carry out a rescue in poor visibility or at night.

Irish Helicopters, which lost its bid to hold on to the contract, has expressed "astonishment" at the Department's attitude. It has criticised the tendering process, pointing out that Bond was the only company allowed to include a penalty clause in its tender.

Aviation sources believe the department's attitude to Bond was influenced by the need to provide a new rescue helicopter on the east coast by the end of the year.