Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are nine vessels in the fleet, which is more than we had before. We have five new vessels and four were decommissioned. It was never the case that all nine would be operational or at sea at the same time, but I can confirm that six are fully operational, two are in planned maintenance and one is in long-term refit. We will go from six vessels to seven later in the year, but that can only be done if we see an improvement in the number of staff and specialists in the Naval Service. It remains to be seen whether that will be possible. The minimum is six vessels.

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