In March 2017 Rescue 116, a Coast Guard helicopter, struck Black Rock off the Mayo coast. Four crew died.
The Air Accident Investigation Unit spent four years finding out why. Part of that was looking at the people who were supposed to be watching.
They didn’t find much. The law says the Department of Transport must examine the Aviation Authority every few years. Those examinations “were not completed between the years 2004 and 2015”. And the Department told the investigators it “did not have aviation expertise within the Department”. Not to worry, said the Minister: a full-time Aviation Manager would be appointed.
The investigators borrowed an idea from a British inquiry into a lost RAF aircraft. You can contract out safety work. But keep enough expertise of your own to be an “intelligent customer”, or you can’t tell whether what you’re buying is any good.
So in November 2021 they recommended two simple things. Get “sufficient specialist aviation expertise”. And “periodically review the availability of in-house expertise”.
Remember “in-house”.
The Department replied in February 2022. It used to hire experts “rarely”, except for the statutory examination of the Aviation Authority. Now it hired them “much more regularly”. And “this approach will continue”.
Get some expertise of your own. We’ll hire more consultants. Not quite the same thing.
In 2023 it hired consultants. Their job: look around Europe and find out whether other ministries bother keeping aviation expertise in-house.
Now, who to ask? The terms of reference said: focus on countries whose safety regulator is independent of the ministry. Four EU countries weren’t even sent the questionnaire, because their arrangements were “quite different to that in Ireland”. One of those was France.
So the comparison that counted was with ministries that had already handed the expertise to someone else. Ask only people who’ve got rid of their car whether they still drive every day.
Then count. 26 questionnaires went out. 16 came back, Ireland’s included. Nine of those, Ireland included, had a separate regulator. So: Ireland against eight. Two of the eight had ministry staff with aviation expertise watching their regulator. Six didn’t.
Six out of eight out of sixteen out of 26. That’s the finding.
The headline: the Department “has resources and expertise which are comparable”. Its arrangements were “robust”. Nobody else’s were “as comprehensive”.
Then page 14. The Department’s aviation staff “are not, nor are they required to be, technical experts or specialists in the field of civil aviation safety”. They “do not hold any professional aviation qualifications”. The word “comparable” turns up once more, in the conclusions. There, it’s the number of staff that’s comparable.
And the report’s bottom line? The Department can oversee the Aviation Authority “in conjunction with the ICAO and EASA audits”. So… with the international auditors doing the technical bit?
In the officials’ summary for the Minister, it had lost a few words. The full report went with it, but the summary did the talking. The Department “has resources and expertise that are comparable”. The arrangements are “robust”. It “has sufficient specialist expertise available to it”. The ICAO and EASA part didn’t make the trip. Nor did the report’s own qualifier on who Ireland was being compared with: eight countries “having similar roles and division of tasks”. Still less that the one thing the conclusions actually called comparable was the head count!
What’s a couple of words here and there?
The same page 14 names the one part of the Department that does have aviation qualifications. The Air Accident Investigation Unit. Pilots and engineers. Only the people who made the recommendation.
And “independent”? Independent of what? The same report says the Irish Aviation Authority “is funded solely by fees levied upon the industry that it regulates”, and “These fees are set by the IAA”. Not one euro from the Exchequer. The report compares staff. It compares oversight. It never asks who pays.
Someone else did. A 2015 study for Norway’s transport ministry looked at six aviation authorities. In Switzerland the State paid 82 per cent. In Norway, close to 30. In Denmark the State paid for the rule-making. In Sweden the fees went into the State Treasury and the regulator got a grant back.
And when we asked the Aviation Authority’s chief executive and chief operating officer whether it had a public-interest mandate, the answer was no.
So: a regulator paid entirely by the companies it licenses, at prices it sets, with no public-interest mandate, overseen by a Department with no aviation qualifications in its aviation divisions. The consultants called that robust. Cost to the taxpayer: €38,650.
The report was stamped “Commercial In Confidence” and sat for fifteen months. Then, in spring 2025, it went to the Minister with a recommendation from his officials. There are “significant advantages” to hiring expertise in. The reviews “provide assurance” that the Department “has sufficient specialist expertise available to it”. Please approve the final answer to the investigators.
“This approach will continue”, the Department had said in 2022. It has. We asked for every outside aviation expert it had hired since 2020 (story 11 has the list).
And the other recommendation, the periodic review of in-house expertise? The Department promised it would “continue to periodically evaluate best options”. In 2026 we asked for the records of every review. “The record concerned does not exist or cannot be found after all reasonable steps to ascertain its whereabouts have been taken.”
So, here’s where we’ve landed. Four people died. The investigators found that the Department meant to oversee aviation safety had no aviation expertise, and asked it to get some of its own, so it could tell good advice from bad. The Department said it would buy advice instead. Then it bought €38,650 worth, to find out whether it needed any expertise. The consultants compared Ireland with eight countries and found six of them don’t keep the expertise in-house either. They never asked who pays the regulator. They noted that the Department’s own staff had no aviation qualifications and weren’t required to. And they called it robust. On the consultants’ own page, the only aviation-qualified people it names in the Department are the investigators who asked. And the periodic review of in-house expertise has left no record.
The investigators asked the Department to know enough to be an intelligent customer. Four years on, the hardest work it has done on that is proving it has no need to be intelligent.
If the same thing happened tomorrow, the investigators would find the same Department, with the same answer.
Sources
- Air Accident Investigation Unit, Final Report 2021-008 on the accident to Sikorsky S-92A EI-ICR (Rescue 116), Black Rock, Co. Mayo, 14 March 2017, published 5 November 2021 (the examinations under the Irish Aviation Authority Act 1993 that “were not completed between the years 2004 and 2015”; the Department’s statement that it “did not have aviation expertise within the Department”; the planned full-time Aviation Manager; the Nimrod Review and the “intelligent customer”; Safety Recommendations IRLD2021029, to “periodically review the availability of in-house expertise”, and IRLD2021031, to ensure “sufficient specialist aviation expertise”). AAIU website: https://aaiu.ie/aaiu_report/final-report-accident-involving-a-sikorsky-s-92a-helicopter-registration-ei-icr-at-black-rock-co-mayo-ireland-on-14-march-2017-report-no-2021-008/
- Irish Aviation Authority Act 1993, section 32 (examination of the Authority’s performance by a person appointed by the Minister). Revised Acts: https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/1993/act/29/revised/en/html
- The Nimrod Review: an independent review into the broader issues surrounding the loss of the RAF Nimrod MR2 Aircraft XV230 in Afghanistan in 2006, by Charles Haddon-Cave QC, October 2009 (cited in the AAIU report on contracting out and the “intelligent customer”). GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nimrod-review
- Air Accident Investigation Unit, status of Safety Recommendation IRLD2021031, 4 January 2024, recording the Department of Transport’s response of 1 February 2022 (it “rarely” contracted specialist aviation expertise before, now does so “much more regularly”, and “this approach will continue”). AAIU website: https://aaiu.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IRLD2021031-20240104.pdf
- Department of Transport, Request for Tenders dated 19 April 2023, “A Review of the form of aviation expertise utilised by EU ministries with responsibility for civil aviation” (scope of work, section 1.2 of Appendix 1, including the focus on countries whose safety regulator is independent of the ministry). Released to NRTG under FOI request TRA-FOI-2026-0083 (Department of Transport), 24 April 2026.
- AQE (Aerospace Qualified Entity) with TwynstraGudde, “A Review, and a Comparison with other European States, of the Arrangements in Ireland for the Oversight of its Independent Aviation Safety Authority”, report to the Department of Transport, version 2.0, 28 December 2023, marked “Commercial In Confidence” (the four Member States not sent the questionnaire, France among them, as arrangements “quite different to that in Ireland”; 26 questionnaires, 16 responses, nine with a separate regulator, two of the other eight with ministry staff holding aviation expertise; the headline that the Department “has resources and expertise which are comparable”; “robust”; “as comprehensive”; staff “are not, nor are they required to be, technical experts” and “do not hold any professional aviation qualifications”; the Air Accident Investigation Unit as the qualified part of the Department; “in conjunction with the ICAO and EASA audits”; “having similar roles and division of tasks”; conclusion 6.15 on the number of staff; the IAA “is funded solely by fees levied upon the industry that it regulates” and “These fees are set by the IAA”). Released to NRTG under FOI request TRA-FOI-2026-0083 (Department of Transport), 24 April 2026.
- Department of Transport, eSubmission Transport 00074-25, “Response to Safety Recommendation 31 from the AAIU Investigation Report into R116 Accident”, 7 March 2025, sent to the Minister on 8 April 2025 with the AQE report attached (the Department “has resources and expertise that are comparable”; “robust”; “sufficient specialist expertise available to it”; “significant advantages”; “provide assurance”; approval sought for the final response). Released to NRTG under FOI request TRA-FOI-2026-0083 (Department of Transport), 24 April 2026, with redactions of material outside the scope of the request.
- Integra A/S, “A comparative study of the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority”, prepared for Samferdselsdepartementet (the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications), Oslo, August 2015 (funding of the aviation authorities of Norway, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden). Kudos, the Norwegian government document archive: https://kudos.dfo.no/dokument/287eb6d0-9fb7-4673-ab1c-215280e18362
- Joint Committee on Transport, meeting of 18 March 2026, “General Scheme of the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026: Discussion (Resumed)”, official report: NRTG’s evidence that the IAA’s chief executive and chief operating officer, asked whether the IAA has a public-interest mandate, answered no. oireachtas.ie: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/joint_committee_on_transport/2026-03-18/
- Department of Transport, FOI decision TRA-FOI-2026-0085 (Part 1), 6 May 2026, schedule of external aviation consultancy engaged since 2020, including AQE, 2023, €38,650. Released to NRTG under FOI request TRA-FOI-2026-0085 (Department of Transport), 6 May 2026.
- Air Accident Investigation Unit, status of Safety Recommendation IRLD2021029, 4 January 2024, recording the Department of Transport’s update of 19 September 2023 (it “will continue to periodically evaluate best options”). AAIU website: https://aaiu.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IRLD2021029-20240104.pdf
- Department of Transport, FOI decision on request TRA-FOI-2026-0086 and schedule of records, 9 April 2026, refusing the records of any periodic review of in-house expertise under Safety Recommendation IRLD2021029 because “The record concerned does not exist or cannot be found after all reasonable steps to ascertain its whereabouts have been taken”. Released to NRTG under FOI request TRA-FOI-2026-0086 (Department of Transport), 9 April 2026.