Gerard P. Craughwell: Where Are Our Training Helicopters?

Thank you very much, Chair. I just want to briefly return to the helicopters and the purchase of the helicopters. Nowhere in the report on the Commission of Defence Forces do I see anything about buying platforms for training. The platforms specifically outlined were to augment the six helicopters that are there today, to give us medium lift capacity to be able to do things like fight fires, forest fires and the like, to provide air ambulance services, etc. So I'm at a loss to understand why we didn't do what the Level of Ambition 2 required us to do. Then I want to go on and I want to look at procurement in general. Dr. Davis last week advised this committee that to procure everything from one source was to risk the future. When we buy equipment for the Defence Forces, we buy equipment for the next 20, 30, 40 years, depending on what we're doing. I mentioned a little while ago about the infrastructure. The work that has been done on infrastructure will last this country for 40 years, and probably longer. We'll probably see all Poland in 100 years' time as good as it is today. So I'm trying to figure out what decisions are made with respect to suppliers. We're living in a very dangerous, geopolitically transient world. If we buy all of our equipment from one particular nation, and the politics in that nation changes, where are we with respect to spare parts? Where are we with respect to technical support? Where are we with respect to the longevity of the equipment we buy? Because it appears to me that everything is being moved to one specific country. That's what we're hearing. So can somebody explain to me what the charm with that particular country is? Senator, if I may, I'll just take the first one on the helicopters first, if you don't mind. It was a very good question, a very good observation you've made, Senator Crockwell. We were surprised, as you, when we actually saw the outcome of the Commission, that the training helicopters were actually not referenced. It seemed to have been an oversight, so it was a priority of the Defence Forces, so it was that actually the helicopters were to be called for training, because we're outsourcing at the moment. We're outsourcing to other jurisdictions, which means when the pilots are gone, they're actually not available for other tasks on islands. We're actually not getting the best of our resources. So it makes more sense from an operation point of view to actually invest in our own helicopters, because there is an aging fleet there and they need to be replaced. So that's the explanation for that. So you're saying the Air Corps set aside LOA2 in favour of buying training aircraft? I'm not saying that they set aside. It would appear that there was an oversight. So the language in the Commission allows for flexibility in terms of implementation. It doesn't say you have to use a particular platform as such. There's flexibility in the language there. I think there's no ambiguity about the purpose of the aircraft. Medium lift aircraft, to be able to carry a section of Special Forces, to be able to do firefighting, etc. I cannot see how a smaller helicopter fulfills that requirement. Now, you and I can argue about this all day. Neither of the two of us are qualified in aeronautical stuff, but it is the question. There's also the question, I just checked it on the web, Cyprus paid 140 million for their six helicopters, which is 5 million per helicopter less than what we've paid. When did they buy them, Senator? What year? Sorry? Are you accounting for inflation as well, and what was the specification of them? These are the considerations in any pricing with anything that you buy. It's like buying a standard BMW and what you add on to it in terms of your specification. You'd want an awful lot of specification to spend 5 million now in all honesty. Well, not in defence terms because equipment is expensive. I understand they're basically the same specifics, but we can check that out. One last one for you. My colleague, Doneco Lira, mentioned Israeli equipment. I fully appreciate that you weren't anticipating that, and probably it's not something that would come across your table very often. But I think we need to go back to Airbus, the manufacturers, and get certified from them that no Israeli parts of any sort will be fitted to those aircraft. And I think the committee needs that reassurance from the department. So I think it's an unfair question to put to you today, but I think you need to go back to Airbus and establish that for the committee, because it is government policy. Can we have an agreement to do that? Well, I'll have to look to see actually in terms of the actual specification first internally before I go back to the company. I think that may have been checked out already, but I don't actually have the facts in front of me. It could be weapons systems, or it could be navigational, it could be technology on board. You have to appreciate I deal with a lot of things, a lot of equipment, and there's a lot of details. I think it would be really helpful for the committee to have that information. Well, as we have confirmed in terms of the actual policy since 2024, there is provision for no Israeli technology when we go to the market. So that's very important. I should have said it's the component parts and the parts you just mentioned. But you did ask one question in the middle there in terms of just centralising the procurement to one country and the risks attached to that. I can take that. That's OK. So I suppose what I'd say is procurement decisions, we don't just look at one country and say we're going to procure from that particular country. Procurement decisions are very much based on what our requirements are, what's value for money, and capacity and capability with other countries. So we select the suppliers based on their ability to meet those requirements, not on the fact that it's just France. It just happens in the case of France. They are a particularly strong country in terms of defence industry. So they do have a lot of companies who, let's say Airbus or they have Thales or they have various companies. So there's different companies there that when we have done various procurement contracts, those suppliers have actually just won them. We're picking them because they meet our requirements, they meet our operational requirements, not because they're French companies. In the case of the government-to-government, we have two arrangements, the armoured fleet replacement and the military radar. In the case of the military radar programme, we would have gone out to all European countries, plus some extra countries, UK, the US, and would have invited all of those countries to come to us to see are they interested in providing us with radar. Eight countries, I think, said they were interested, so we whittled that down to four, and then we whittled that down to one, on the basis of looking at what the offerings were and did they meet our requirements. In the case of the armoured fleet programme, I think there was market research done, and again, I think the Scopion programme. There was a significant market analysis done of the armoured fleet market, and we looked at it from the point of view of capability that was actually in service as well and in use in other jurisdictions to make sure that what we were getting is actually something that is actually tried and tested and mature in terms of the actual equipment, and also we looked at it in terms of capability. Sustainment as well was very important for us, and also in relation to a lot of the programmes that are there, they're actually research and development, so it doesn't make sense for us as a small nation to actually be going into a research and development type procurement arrangement, or whether we have multiple suppliers, where the vehicles we would have to work with different suppliers, so that would not be something that we would be able to manage, and also we actually look at a family vehicles approach as well, where the systems will actually all work together, so the vehicles are complementary with each other in terms of some of the spare parts, which makes sense from a value for money point of view, and also in terms of actually being able to maintain and sustain them as well. So that's the thinking around that. Can I ask you, I mean I find it incredible that we're buying helicopters and we're buying them from France, we're buying sonar, we're buying from France, we're buying primary radar, we're buying from France, I understand we're buying military vehicles from France, is there no other country in the world, we had relationships with other countries for surface-to-air missiles for example, and I understand they are now also going to France. I find it, and Dr. Davis pointed this out last week, I find it incredibly dangerous to have piled all of our eggs into one basket. Political change in France tomorrow morning could see our supply lines close down. You're talking about buying equipment for the next 20 to 30 years. We can't tell in the current environment what it would be like in two years' time, in a year's time, six months' time. We have no idea. I just find it incredible. I would not go to, say, a single garage only and buy everything I need for my car in that garage. I would shop around, that's what people do. I find it incredibly strange. I suppose we are shopping around, we have shopped around, and our policy now is to use government-to-government for the big major equipment platforms. But it's not just we go to France, we have set up now relationships with other countries, we've set up memorandums of understanding with a number of countries, I think Finland, France, the UK and the Netherlands we've already done, we're looking at memorandums of understanding now with Italy, with Belgium and Germany in the future. So we aren't just looking at France, we are looking broader, we are talking to other countries. So it isn't that we're putting all the eggs in one basket. And we do have already a lot of equipment that isn't from France. There's lots of stuff already in Defence Forces that operates that isn't from France. There's not much left to buy if you bought all the stuff I mentioned from any other country. There's still a lot of capability, and you'll see it in the capability development programme that we produce later on this year, that there is still a lot of capability gaps, and there's plenty of other markets that we will. So we look across the board, we're not just looking at France. Look, I don't want to delabour the point, but one of the things in your statement is value for money. For the state. We've paid five million each for helicopters, more than the Cypriots paid. A smaller island, a smaller economy, probably less need than ours. And the helicopters that we have bought, OK, you'd say they're for training. I don't know where that came from. We're sending pilots at a cost of about half a million a year to the UK to be trained. So I don't know where that came from. Are we going to reopen Baldon for training pilots? I'm not sure. But directly, LOA2 wanted two medium-lift aircraft to add to the six that we already have. We do not now have that, having spent 120-odd million. We have not augmented the current stock of medium-lift aircraft, which leaves us vulnerable. And we saw that vulnerability so blatant when we had to go and arrest a ship off the southwest coast. So I don't mean to labour it any more than that. I've said really all I can say, and we do need reassurances on the Israeli question. I have two clarifications. Thank you for that contribution, Senator. The helicopters that you refer to are being purchased through a UK contract. So it's actually Airbus UK, and they're being manufactured in Germany and fitted out in the UK. So they're not actually French, just for the record. And in relation to the overall approach, then, as I mentioned already, there's flexibility within the Commission for platforms. And the main thing is to actually have availability and training for the pilots. So you can buy all the super mediums or other types of helicopters you like, but the basic training platform needs to be in place. And that's where this whole decision was coming from. And there's a full strategic assessment done in relation to this from a policy point of view, a very comprehensive one to the public spending code. There was an options analysis done as to whether to actually purchase two additional AW139s or to purchase additional helicopters as in the H145. So there was a robust analysis done in respect of that particular program. So that's the sort of thing. Obviously, you don't have that detail, Senator. So in terms of the detail in relation to that, if you did actually have some information, it might actually give you a better understanding of that.