St Johnston man speaks out on his Air Corps hell after €2m settlement

A St Johnston man has spoken out about his experience in the Irish Air Corps which he says has destroyed his health.

Last week, the State agreed to pay €2million to Gary Coll in order to settle a case taken by the 51-year-old former aviation technician, who alleged that his health was damaged due to being exposed to dangerous chemicals.

A last-minute agreement at the High Court was reached without an admission of liability by the State.

Mr Coll, speaking on Upfront With Katie Hannon, recalled how he joined the Irish Air Corps in 1991 and was based at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel.

Now, he is unable to walk unaided, suffers from chronic fatigue and has memory and heart issues. 

"The minister stands up and says he can’t look at a health and safety issue because he has to wait for the go-ahead from the State Claims Agency, or the Courts?” Mr Coll said. 

“No. It’s a cop-out to hide behind the court cases.”

Mr Coll branded the Minister for Defence a “coward” and said the settlement reached, without an admission of liability, has left him feeling “robbed”.

Noting that he felt coerced into agreeing to the settlement, he said: “All I wanted was the truth…prevented the evidence being heard and the truth coming out.”

Mr Coll left the Air Corps in 1997. He represented the force in sport and he competed for Ireland at the Henley Regatta.

However, he recalled how he suffered from “horrible anxiety attacks” before he left the Air Corps and was hospitalised with what he described as “unknown headaches.

He also experienced gastrointestinal problems and persistent nosebleeds that would last for weeks on end. “I was dripping blood all the time,” he said.

“I got no answers. If you’re not looking for the problem, you won’t find the problem”.

It was only years later, when he experienced neurological problems and found himself at a “dead end” that he realised that he wasn’t the only former airman with a similar experience. 

“The place was a mess, Baldonnel was,” Mr Coll recalled. “The floors were so dirty people were afraid to catch fire, there was so much chemical spilled. That was every day. There were fumes, chemicals being used openly with no extraction systems within feet of where you worked.”

He spoke of being “tubbed” when he was just 17; a process where new workers were submerged in unspecified chemicals and oil.

“I was covered head to toe in oil,” he said.

A report carried out in 1995 found high levels of hazardous chemicals in Baldonnel, three-and-a-half times an accepted limit.

He said: “We were never told that. I didn’t find out about those results five years ago.”

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Mr Coll told the programme how his short-term memory has been affected. He recently watched a recording of a Six Nations rugby match from 2023 and “couldn’t remember who won the game”. 

He said: “That’s regular for me now.”