David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste and his officials for being here. I will focus on the Naval Service. The Tánaiste said that there was a situation of a three-ship posture, with two ships in operation and the other on standby. Will he tell us how many ships we have? Is it six or is it eight? Two new ships arrived here last May from New Zealand. Will the Tánaiste give us an update on those? What is happening with them? Will we have enough people to man them and put them out to sea? Will he give us an update on the other six ships that are listed in the Department's website, namely, LÉ Róisín, LÉ Niamh,LÉ Samuel Beckett, LÉ James Joyce, LÉ William Butler Yeatsand LÉ George Bernard Shaw? Are some of them not operational at the moment? They cost us a lot of money. Which three are actually part of the two-ship operation and one on standby? I ask about the actual infrastructure of the Naval Service with respect to the number of ships we have, the plans to crew them, and how we use them. Two ships at sea at any one time seems very few for the amount of water we have to cover.

Linked to that, will the Tánaiste give us an idea of the patrol duty allowances and the proposal to simplify the current quite complicated situation whereby there a number of allowances being paid at different levels to different ranks at different rates? Will he indicate when that will happen, what it will look like and how soon it will happen? I refer to patrol duty allowances and the seeking ongoing commitment and all of that. It is quite complex. We have been kicking this around for quite a time. If that was increased and simplified so people could understand it and qualify for it easier, it might help with retention. The Tánaiste mentioned recruitment as an important issue. I maintain that retention is as important.

Another question that is linked to that is if the Tánaiste have plans to incentivise long-service arrangements with certain officers in NCO ranks? In other words, will he incentivise people to stay in the service, be it the Air Corps, the Army or, in particular, the Naval Service? What about technical pay? We know if you lose certain technical grades, you cannot go to sea at all. At the moment, we are running quite close to the wire on the number of technicians we have who are needed to man the ships. Will the Tánaiste provide a report on that for the next meeting in order that members can digest it?

Also, we know that psychometric testing has been paused for six months. When will the six months be up and how long will the analysis of this approach take? Can the Tánaiste give us any indication now of any preliminary learnings from this pause? We know up to half the people who do the psychometric testing fail and those are only the people who complete it and do not include those who attempt it. Many people are turned off by the very sight of it. I challenge the Cathaoirleach to take one here in public to see how he gets on. I tried the test, and it is definitely not easy. I know people practice, get coached and pay money to learn how to do it, so it is quite difficult. I am not sure if the Tánaiste has looked at these psychometric tests but they are challenging.