Government charter €7k per hour plane to take Martin to Middle East as Learjet breaks down

Ken Foxe

The Government had to charter a €7,000-per-hour business aircraft to take Tánaiste Micheál Martin to the Middle East after the Government’s Learjet broke down again last week leaving Taoiseach Leo Varadkar “stranded” in Paris.

One of the Air Corps Pilatus PC-12 planes was dispatched to collect Mr Varadkar from the French capital despite concerns over using those aircraft for transporting either the Taoiseach or the President.

With Tánaiste Micheál Martin due to travel on a long-distance trip to Egypt and Israel this week, the Pilatus plane was considered too small and unsuitable for the mission while another option of a Casa fisheries patrol was also ruled out as not reliable enough.

A decision was made to charter an Embraer Legacy aircraft through a private aviation company and it flew out of Baldonnel at 7pm on Tuesday with an estimated flight time of around five hours.

On charter websites, such an aircraft generally costs in the region of around €7,000 per hour meaning a large five-figure bill looms for the Department of Defence.

The Department of Defence has had to organise more than half a dozen charter flights for officeholders over the past 18 months with the €8 million Learjet dogged by technical issues and a series of breakdowns.

On at least three occasions, senior members of the government have ended up “stranded” overseas when the jet broke down while tasked with bringing them back to Ireland.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin confirmed earlier this year that he has signed off on plans for a replacement but there is likely to be an extended lead-in period before that aircraft would be available for service.

The Air Corps have said that the Learjet will have to be taken out of service in 2024 as it reaches its “end of life cycle”.

However, there is a growing level of irritation within senior government around its current reliability and incidents that have seen both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste left sitting in airports for several hours waiting for a replacement.

A Department of Defence source said: “The Learjet has become a bit of a running joke at this stage. But there are a lot of people who don’t find it too funny and think it’s becoming a national embarrassment.”