Brian Stanley: How many naval ships are seaworthy?

What I'm asking here is the number of naval vessels that are in the service that we can staff and safely put to sea, Minister, because, as you know, in recent years that has been down to one and two at times, so just the current level of ability there, capacity. Minister. I wish to advise that the Naval Service currently has a fleet of eight commissioned vessels. These eight vessels consist of two P-50 class large patrol vessels, four P-60 class offshore patrol vessels and two P-70 inshore patrol vessels. I'm advised by the military authorities that there are four vessels available for operations on rotation basis. This rotation takes account of maintenance, takes account of crew training and then rest periods. The strength of the Naval Service as of 31 March 2006 was 833 personnel out of an establishment of 1,094 personnel. The military authorities have advised that the total number of personnel currently required to crew all vessels is 294, so it should be noted that this is currently under review, this figure in the context of the overall force design process that's currently in progress with a view to enhance our capabilities under level of ambition two. Challenges with ships to sea has all been well documented in recent years. In 25 we've seen the benefit of a number of initiatives which have been introduced in recent years such as the doubling of patrol duty allowance payable. As a result of these initiatives we've seen the number of patrol days completed by the Naval Service in 2025 increase by over 35% on the output from the previous year, so quite a significant increase. Again, I'd like to reassure the Deputy that the regeneration of the Naval Service is one of my priorities as Minister for Defence. It's also of course a priority for the Defence Forces. This reflects the commitment in the programme for government, it's reinforced in the actions required under the strategic framework to 26 which was published in February of this year. To that end, I've detailed discussions with the Chief of Staff on the need to have a regeneration report submitted on the Naval Service and work is underway on that at the moment. The Defence Forces in conjunction with senior officials in my department are working to have the reports and an action plan against which progress can be measured, delivered to me as soon as possible. Joint actions of the Defence Force provide a vital foundation for the new strategy and I'm determined to strengthen our Defence Forces through investing in their personnel and their capabilities so that we can continue to protect and monitor our maritime domain against new and evolving threats. Thanks Minister for your reply. Of course, the maritime area that has to be protected and that comes within our jurisdiction is massive and we know that. From your reply, I take it that there's four that are seaworthy at any one time. Four vessels that are seaworthy at any one time and available as you said. In relation to the rotation, are there some ships within that fleet of eight that are not seaworthy at all? You might just terrify that when you come back and if I heard you right, I think you said that there's 833 staff. What's the numbers that were recruited in 2025 and what was the numbers that retired and what is the target? They're the three key figures. What's the target? What's the numbers that have been recruited and what's the numbers that have retired or who have left the naval services? I know that there's been recruitment and I welcome that to improve capacity. It's important that we have it to protect our cables and the fact that we're a neutral country which you admitted in the answer to a previous question, that doesn't impede us in any way from increasing the capacity of our navy and having sensible levels of cooperation with neighbouring countries and other European countries. Thank you Deputy. So in terms of our overall strength as of now, the 31st of March, it's at 833 personnel. We have establishment or a target figure of 1,094, so obviously we want to reach that and we want to go beyond that if we're looking at level of ambition 2 and beyond. While I don't have the exact figures to hand here for last year, as of the 31st of March this year a total of 39 personnel have been inducted, but that's just in the first three months and as I mentioned of the 7,000 that have applied this year, about 23,000 I believe are applications to the navy, so there's quite a large number again that are still applying, but 39 have been inducted up until the 31st of March this year. In terms of the overall vessels and how they operate, so it's not physically and logistically possible for all of our naval service vessels to be at sea simultaneously and that's because they operate on a rotation basis, furthermore I suppose in terms of maintaining safe manning levels and preventing personnel burnout, and that's why we want to increase our numbers so that we can increase our overall capacity, but again to stress through the ships that we have out with the support of the Air Corps we are able to cover and to monitor with technology and equipment our EEZ on a 24-7 basis, so we want to have greater capabilities on top of that. So in relation to the number of vessels, the eight vessels and there's four at sea at any one time, and I understand that you rotate and I understand that they all can't be at sea at any one time, the question I'm asking is, is it the case that there's one or two of those ships that are not seaworthy at any time, just to clarify that, that are permanently docked, that's the question. I think that the course we have to protect undersea cables, the Celtic interconnector will be coming on stream, with the agreement now signed up with France, there was the drugs importation, that continues to be a challenge, and there's been some notable successes with that by the Navy and other arms of the state, but I think that the question in relation to the target of 1,094, I welcome that, but 39 inducted in the first three months, it's a very low number out of a huge number of applications, there's been huge numbers of people applying, but that is a very, very small number, 39 I think I heard you say Minister. Thank you Deputy Stanley. Just clarify that around the ships. Thank you Deputy, so in relation to our ships, I mean at any given time you may have something arise where a ship needs to have unscheduled maintenance, but for the vast majority of the year you have scheduled maintenance, you have ships that come to a certain period in their lifetime and they go in for scheduled maintenance, and it takes some time obviously to go through that process, so that's why you have the ships operating on a rotational basis, you have the Elievin that we hope will be ready now, that's a new ship to come into commission that would be ready in the third quarter of this year, but again it's about making sure that I suppose the scheduled maintenance happens as it's supposed to, but where issues arise and where ships for unforeseen circumstances need to be taken in for maintenance, then obviously we need to respond as quickly as possible in that regard, but again it is to stress I suppose the physical presence of our Navy and of our ships, they're complemented by 24-7, 365 days a year intelligence that's carried out by our naval operations, and this is in the command centre down in Holborn, they carry out remote monitoring, and then we have the Air Corps aircrafts which are equipped with state-of-the-art communication and surveillance equipment, so they work very closely, to your point, with Arran Garda Síochána with Revenue and Customs, where you have, like we saw the MV Matthews recently, a ship where it was a massive drug sale essentially, and that was work with all of our agencies working together with all of the resources that we have.