Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As new ships come in old ships go out. We have a policy around an eight ship Naval Service and that is the policy for the foreseeable future. When the next Naval Service ship,LE James Joyce, arrives in a couple of months time, the LE Aoifewill be decommissioned and sold. Some 12 months after that, the next ship will arrive so that we will have the LE Samuel Beckett, LE James Joyceand the soon to be named vessel. These are more or less identical vessels, a super design. They are essentially a development on LE Niamh and LE Róisín, slightly longer, sleeker and faster. They are more stable and more fuel efficient. These ships have essentially evolved and one of the good things about working with the contractors who are building these ships, is that our Naval Service personnel have been involved in talking to the design team about how we can make incremental improvements on the design of the ships. From what we have learned in the operation of theLE Samuel Beckett , we have been able to make improvements in the workings of LE James Joyce. I suspect this will apply to the next ship. Certainly the yard is building on the designs and the success of the LE NiamhandLE Róisín,which were the previous two ships. The long-term size and composition of the Naval Service flotilla will be determined in the White Paper. The current policy is that we will have eight ships. I would not like to predict what we will be recommending in the White Paper.