Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

While I agree with the Minister that intelligence-led operations are very much the norm now, surely he will agree, as mentioned in his reply and previously on Question Time, that one must have a constant presence of naval vessels in our territorial waters to act as a real deterrent to people intent on smuggling drugs into the country. The reduction in patrol days in 2010 sends out the wrong message. We are down almost 200 patrol days since 2009. In 2005, there were 1,681 patrol days. Despite the large number of drugs which are obviously coming into this country from South America and other parts of the world, as evidenced in operation Seabight, the number of patrol days has been reduced to 1,480.

I met recently with members of the Naval Service who are concerned about recruitment to the service to ensure it has the personnel to fulfil its commitment and the Government's commitment to ship replacement. The Minister will be aware that the Emer, Aoife and Aisling are past their natural usage. Perhaps he will give a commitment in regard to the patrol days at sea and the replacement of the aforementioned vessels.

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