Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In terms of big costs, if there are currently two ships that can be put to sea, the expectation is that we would need a further three or four. Surely at this stage there are conversations happening between the senior officers in the navy and Dr. Stanley's Department, at principal officer and Secretary General level, about the cost and that will be part of the strategy. She is correct that some of it will be low cos, such as networking and sharing information with other countries, but in terms of actual hardware, what is the estimate for the number of extra vessels required to patrol the extensive territorial waters we have?